Stolen passwords used to access Ring cameras and livestream fake calls to cops, feds say

Two men have been indicted in connection with a scheme to gain access to Ring doorbell cameras and make fake emergency calls to police to livestream their responses on social media, federal prosecutors said.

Kya Christian Nelson, 21, of Racine, Wisconsin, and James Thomas Andrew McCarty, 20, of Charlotte, North Carolina, were indicted on Dec. 19 on multiple federal counts in connection with the scheme, known as “swatting,” according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.

Over the course of a week in 2020, the men got usernames and passwords for Yahoo accounts and used them to gain access to Ring cameras at homes across the country, according to the release. They then placed a variety of bogus emergency calls to police and streamed the live recordings on social media as officers responded to the residences, prosecutors said.

The FBI issued a public service announcement in December 2020 warning homeowners with smart devices, such as Ring cameras, that people were using stolen email passwords to access the devices and “carry out swatting attacks.”

“Swatting” is a hoax call to police and other emergency services placed to get first responders to go to specific locations.

Attorneys for the men were not listed.

Ring told McClatchy News in a statement that it “learned bad actors used stolen customer email credentials obtained from external (non-Ring) services to access other accounts, and took immediate steps to help those customers secure their Ring accounts. We also supported the FBI in identifying the individuals responsible.”

On Nov. 8, 2020, Nelson and an unindicted co-conspirator who is a juvenile gained access to a Ring camera in West Covina, California, about 20 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, according to an indictment. One of them then called the police department pretending to be a child and reported that their parents were drinking and shooting guns inside the house, the indictment says. Nelson then used the Ring camera to “verbally threaten and taunt” the police officers who responded to the house, according to the indictment.

In another instance on Nov. 13, 2020, McCarty, Nelson and the unindicted co-conspirator accessed a Ring camera in North Port, Florida, about 85 miles south of Tampa, the indictment says . McCarty called the police department pretending to be a man who had just killed his wife, according to the indictment. He is also accused of saying he was holding a hostage at the residence and had rigged the home with explosives.

He later posted a message on social media saying he and his co-conspirators access “ring doorbells and we swat them after. … It’s (expletive) funny,” the indictment says .

Other similar incidents occurred in Flat Rock, Michigan; Redding, California; Billings, Montana; Decatur, Georgia; Chesapeake, Virginia; Rosenberg, Texas; Oxnard, California; Darien, Illinois; Huntsville, Alabama; and Katy, Texas, according to the release.

Nelson, who is also known as “ChumLul,” and McCarty, who is also known as “Aspertaine,” were each charged with one count of “conspiracy to intentionally access computers without authorization,” according to the release. Nelson also faces two counts of “intentionally accessing without authorization a computer and two counts of aggravated identity theft,” the release says.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said the Ring cameras were hacked. The cameras were accessed by using stolen email usernames and passwords, Ring told McClatchy News.

This story was originally published December 20, 2022 at 6:46 PM with the headline "Stolen passwords used to access Ring cameras and livestream fake calls to cops, feds say."