[EAS] EAS Zombie Attack

[Otto, Ken]

Chuck stated:

<snip>

"They put out an alert that was obviously silly and bogus, but in doing so they may also have prevented someone else with a more malicious intent from hacking in and having the EAS system alert the public to something much more ominous..."

<snippet over>

That is a good positive attitude.  It's not likely the engineers at the attacked stations will feel that way.

There are indeed many such more ominous alerts the perpetrators could have chosen:

1.  Anything that appears to be an attack on the United States.

2. Redirecting severe thunderstorm or other weather related alerts while such weather is present in an area.

...

I do feel it is a reminder to make sure we have our systems security in place and do not use default passwords.

Ken

Kenneth Otto
Broadcast Operations Engineer
Brevard Community College
WBCC-TV