Emergency Alert Systems Used Across the US Can Be Easily Hijacked (helpnetsecurity.com)

A vulnerability affecting emergency alert systems supplied by ATI Systems, one of the leading suppliers of warning sirens in the USA, could be exploited remotely via radio frequencies to activate all the sirens and trigger false alarms. From a report: "We first found the vulnerability in San Francisco, and confirmed it in two other US locations including Sedgwick County, Wichita, Kansas," Balint Seeber, Director of Threat Research at Bastille, told Help Net Security. "Although we have not visited other locations to confirm the presence of the vulnerability, ATI Systems has customers in the US and overseas from the military, local government, educational and energy sectors.

"ATI features customers on its website around the US including One World Trade Center, WestPoint Military Academy and Entergy Nuclear Indian Point which are all in New York State, UMASS Amherst in Massachusetts, Eastern Arizona College, University of South Carolina and Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, amongst others." The vulnerability stems from the fact that the radio protocol used to control the sirens is not secure: activation commands are sent "in the clear," i.e. no encryption is used.

Comments

Not news. They were meant to be easy to activate.

[Narcocide]

Nobody expected a proliferation of asshats would cause to be called into question the priorities of making emergency alert systems easily accessible.

Re:Cant be any worse

[SeaFox]

Double-check the settings on your phone's alert app. I actually found a place to customize (and disable) those Amber alerts.