McClatchyDC: > Dallas' emergency siren system was hacked overnight, resulting in them > sporadically sounding for about an hour and a half and forcing > officials to have to shut down the system, they said Saturday. > > The person or people responsible were able to hack into a part of the > system that was communicating with all 156 of the city's sirens, Rocky > Vaz, who heads the city's Office of Emergency Management, said at a > news conference. > > He said his office eventually had to shut down the system, which is > used to alert people to shelter indoors during severe weather. > Technicians are trying to determine how to bring the system back > online without the risk of it being hacked again, he said. In the > meantime, the public has access to other alert systems, including > reverse 911. > > The sirens were activated at 11:42 p.m. on Friday. Officials > deactivated the entire system by 1:17 a.m. Saturday. Vaz said the > sirens went through about 15 cycles of a 90-second siren activation. > > "We shut it down as quickly as we could, taking into consideration all > of the precautions and protocols we had to take to make sure that we > were not compromising our 156 siren system," he said. > > City spokeswoman Sana Syed said investigators believe the hack came > from the Dallas area. Vaz said city officials have asked the Federal > Communications Commission for help in determining who was behind the > hack. He said police were not involved yet. > > "We can't talk a whole lot about the hack itself, because obviously we > don't want this to happen again," Syed said.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article143509739.html
