911 could face its own emergency: Hackers

911 could face its own emergency: Hackers

The latest research released this week by Ben Gurion University in Israel reveals the findings of 911 systems been potentially in danger that could overwhelm a complete state’s 911 system with endless calls, by using a network of hacked smartphone, and shutting out a great portion of legitimate callers, also known as a denial of service attack (DOS attack).

According to this article, researchers replicated North Carolina’s model based on its 911 network, with the knowledge that all emergency response systems are run at the local or state level, and the assessment determined that if hackers compromised 6000 smartphones with malicious software, they could make calls to 911 and block out half of all legitimate callers using cell phones in North Carolina.

Those results were shared to the US Department of Homeland Security says the Washington Post, and remarks of this type of danger have been made in the past of denial of service attacks on emergency response infrastructure.

The solution proposed was to change phone infrastructure completely, and stop using old fashion analog phone switches to route emergency calls, and instead use provide internet-like network called managed IP Networks, however there was no mentioned of how much money this would undertake in this article.

http://www.cnet.com/news/911-could-face-its-own-emergency-hackers/