DHS Guides for Responding to Mass Bomb Threats

DHS’s Office of Bombing Prevention (OBP) has published two new products that provide critical information on mass bomb threats, including indicators of a threat and appropriate mitigation and response actions to take.

Mass bomb threats, also referred to as mass bomb threat campaigns, entail messages being sent to numerous entities at about the same time, typically by email or phone. In one such campaign, in December 2018, multiple infrastructure sites in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand received over 3,000 bomb threats via emails from an unknown sender, which claimed an unspecified explosive device had been emplaced in the recipient’s location and would detonate if the recipient failed to send $20,000 in Bitcoin to a designated web address. According to OBP, virtually all such campaigns were unsubstantiated and harmless, as was the case in the December 2018 incident. Still, these campaigns often have a psychological impact, disrupting lives and creating fear, uncertainty, and sometimes panic. Unsubstantiated bomb threats may also create complacency that can lead to increased vulnerability when actual devices are present. The first product intended to shed light on this phenomenon is a two-page “postcard” that provides information on indicators and important considerations and response actions to take depending on the threat level. The second is a TRIPwire Awareness Bulletin that provides resources for a managed response to bomb threat campaigns and information on previous mass bomb threat campaigns. These resources include both virtual and in-person training, checklists, educational videos, and more. For more information on this topic and bomb threats in general, see DHS’s “What to Do – Bomb Threat” webpage.