[EAS] Dallas warning sirens hacked - maybe

[Botterell, Arthur@CalOES]

This is why we included a Cancel message type in CAP.  Errors will happen, both willful and witless.  I don't know whether it has to do with the worshipful attitude we tend to take toward "official" information and systems, or just an unwillingness to come to grips with human and technical imperfection.

While I was running the Contra Costa County (CA) warning system we had an individual stuck-on siren about once every nine months.  (Bird droppings were blamed.)  Eventually our contractor put a manual cut-of switch on each siren's pole, keyed to a standard key carried by our Sheriff's deputies.  It would have been a mess if all our sirens went at once, but at least we wouldn't have had to take down the whole system.

We also had a standard "never mind" message templated in case of errors or false alarms.  I wonder how many local warning system operators do?  (And the old "accidental missile launch" EAS procedures don't count, except by way of example!)

Anyway, "hacking" is a bit like "terrorism," in that entails an inference about some actor's intentions.  In many cases it's quite a while before an incident can honestly be placed in either category... which doesn't stop folks from shooting from the hip for political reasons.

Art
________________________________________
From: EAS <eas-bounces at radiolists.net> on behalf of Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com>

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

https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcontent.govdelivery.com%2Fbulletins%2Fgd%2FTXDALLAS-193126a&data=01%7C01%7Carthur.botterell%40caloes.ca.gov%7Cd18c3772fee54b05f65508d47eda5036%7Cebf268ae303647149f69c9fd0e9dc6b9%7C1&sdata=44quT9f6UI3PVV7mvKu7Oednul1TSDR47ioCNVl7RrU%3D&reserved=0

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.