‘Scary and silencing’: Troops, families receive threats from foreign bad actors

Some service members and their families have been threatened by foreign adversaries both overseas and in the United States, according to information provided to Military Times.

“For folks we’ve heard from, threats began a few weeks after the U.S. strikes against Iran began,” said Sarah Streyder, the wife of a Space Force guardian stationed overseas.

People have received threats through email, social media and text messages, and they appear to be coming from individuals connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Streyder said.

But in some cases, she said, members of the IRGC have showed up at hotels in a nearby Gulf country, inquiring about U.S. service members who are temporarily staying there.

“As a result, those service members have had to keep relocating to different hotels for safety,” she said.

The threats have included identifying details about the service members, spouses and children, such as their names, current temporary locations, current home addresses and current schools, said Streyder, who is also executive director of the Secure Families Initiative, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that seeks to mobilize those in the military community to be voters and advocates.

Neither U.S. Central Command nor the Department of Defense immediately responded to questions about these threats.

In April, U.S. Navy officials sent a Navy-wide notice providing detailed information to sailors about how to secure their electronic devices and personal information. The notice advised sailors to report suspicious messages to their unit’s agency’s information technology department.

Meanwhile, lawmakers have released information from CENTCOM that confirmed for the first time that hostile foreign adversaries are using commercial location data to target American troops in an active war zone.

CENTCOM confirmed that the command has received “multiple threat reports concerning adversary exploitation of commercial location data to target or surveil U.S. personnel in theater” for Operation Epic Fury, according to a May 28 announcement from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Pat Harrigan, R-N.C.

CENTCOM provided the information in an April response to questions from Wyden.

“DOD officials have reportedly known about the threat that commercial data brokers pose to national security for at least a decade,” said Wyden and Harrigan, in a May 28 letter to Kirsten A. Davies, DOD’s chief information officer. The letter was signed by a bipartisan group of 12 other members of the Senate and House.

The lawmakers urged DOD to adopt safeguards, such as disabling smartphone advertising IDs and replacing web browsers that are designed to facilitate online tracking and data collection.

Lawmakers noted that earlier in May, CENTCOM gained the capability to disable location sharing on smartphones it manages. CENTCOM officials told senators in its response that the advertising ID is still not disabled on DOD-issued smartphones, but that DOD is testing a capability to do so.

Meanwhile, the threats that appear to be coming from IRGC are happening to families in at least three branches — the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy, Streyder said.

“Some of these threats seem based broadly on troops who are or have been stationed in theater,” she said, and some “seem hyper personal based on a troop’s suspected connection to specific operations.

“This certainly isn’t the first time U.S. service members and their families have received threats from foreign adversaries,” she continued. “And certainly, military families are reminded often about the importance of helping maintain [personal security] and [operations security] in order to minimize risks both to operations and to personnel.

“That said — it’s not a common occurrence for many of us — and many facing it right now are facing it for the first time. It’s scary and it’s silencing.”

Individuals who discussed the threats with Streyder declined to speak to Military Times, citing safety reasons and concerns about retaliation.

The fear that these threats instill in the families receiving them “has a huge impact on how openly families feel like they can share what’s going on in their lives,” Streyder said.

“We want our fellow Americans to understand the breadth and depth of risks military families face as part of their commitment to service. These are the costs we incur any time our country goes to war.”