SWAT team raids wrong home in open Wi-Fi network cock-up [VIDEO]

Is your home Wi-Fi network left open for anyone to use? Maybe this staggering story from America will make you think twice as to whether that’s a good idea.

After spotting threats posted online, a heavily-armed police SWAT team broke down the door of a house in Evansville, Indiana, smashed windows and tossed a flashbang stun grenade into the living room where an eighteen-year-old girl and her grandmother were watching the Food Network.

Can you imagine how terrifying it must have felt to have been in that room when the grenade was thrown in, and the house stormed by police with their guns drawn?

Oh, and just a small detail – the police had the wrong house. The home had an open Wi-Fi connection, which meant that it could be used from an outside location.

The dramatic events were helpfully captured on video, as the police had invited the local news station to record the raid (presumably their intention was to show themselves in a good light, rather than making a massive goof)…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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