US Hacker Sets Off 156 Sirens At Midnight (dallasnews.com)

"I had the displeasure of being awoken at midnight to the sounds of civil-defense/air-raid sirens," writes very-long-time Slashdot reader SigIO, blaming "some schmuck with a twisted sense of humor." The Dallas News reports: Rocky Vaz, director of Dallas' Office of Emergency Management, said that all 156 of the city's sirens were activated more than a dozen times... Dallas officials blame computer hacking for setting off emergency sirens throughout the city early Saturday... It took until about 1:20 a.m. to silence them for good because the emergency system had to be deactivated. The system remained shut down Saturday while crews safeguarded it from another hack.

The city has figured out how the emergency system was compromised and is working to prevent it from happening again, he said... The city said the system should be restored Sunday or Monday.
City officials reported 4,400 calls to their 9-1-1 emergency phone number in the first four hours of Saturday morning, with over 800 occurring in that first 15 minutes when all 156 sirens started going off simultaneously.

Comments

Let me guess

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Let me guess, SQL injection strikes again?

Re:Let me guess

[gijoel]

Damn you Bobby Drop_Tables.

Re:Don't encourage him

[EvilSS]

If no one knows what to do when they hear the siren, then there's really not much point in having the siren in the first place.

1.2 million people live in Dallas. 4400 confused people, or about a third of 1%, dialed 911. You can't extrapolate from that to say that "no one" knew what to do.

For the clueless, here is what you should do when you hear a siren: 1. If you are in a tsunami warning area, head for higher ground. 2. Make sure your house isn't on fire. 3. If you have an air raid or fallout shelter, get in and seal the door. 4. If none of the above apply, then go back to bed and hope that someone else deals with the problem.

Great, you just killed everyone in tornado country. Hope you are happy.