[EAS] Dallas warning sirens hacked - maybe

[Sean Donelan]

Outdoor warning sirens are related to Emergency Alert Systems. Dallas has 
notified the FCC its outdoor warning siren system was hacked.

https://content.govdelivery.com/bulletins/gd/TXDALLAS-193126a

Throughout the mid-west, city and county-wide outdoor warning siren 
systems are primarily used for tornado warnings.

Late Friday night, all 156 sirens in Dallas were activated, and repeatedly 
re-active for several hours.  Dallas emergency officials were finally able 
to deactivate the warning sirens by shutting down the entire warning 
system.

Outdoor warning systems are generally controlled remotely, through radio 
controls. The radio security is usually simple, but is limited to the 
transmission range of the radio.  However, some systems also have remote 
maintenance access for the system vendor, through dialup and the 
Internet.  I do not know the specific system configuration used in 
Dallas.

This may not be the first outdoor warning system hacked.  Longmont, 
Colorado experienced a similar problem last year. Longmont attributed the 
problem to a malfunction, although they couldn't identify a specific 
problem. Longmont permanently shutdown its outdoor siren system because it 
could not afford replacing it with a new siren system.

Since its the weekend, the FCC press office hasn't had any comment yet.