Friday night. City of Dallas. Everything is going normally and, suddenly, the emergency sirens start sounding. Earthquake?? Tornado?? No, just a group of hackers wanting to show how vulnerable such an important system as the emergency system is.
The details of the attack are unknown, as official sources avoid giving many details to prevent others from “trying to do it again”. That said, it is known that it was not due to a security flaw in the software that manages the alarms, but rather, a security flaw in the radio transmissions.
The hacker or hackers, managed to get the documentation of the alarm system and succeeded, mediante una replicación de la señal de radio, ejecutar los comandos para activar las sirenas en toda la ciudad.
Instalado en 2007, el sistema de alerta para emergencias está provisto de 156 sirenas. El ayuntamiento, después de este incidente, ha aumentando en 100.000 dólares el presupuesto para securizar el sistema de emergencias y que no vuelva a ocurrir.