The Emergency Response System Could Be Vulnerable To Hackers

hacker can attack the emergency response system

Scientists mentioned that it is very easy for hackers to attack the emergency response system

Researchers from Ben-Gurion University mentioned that if hackers would successfully attack the emergency response system, the callers would receive a busy tone when calling the 911 service.

Since first created in 1968, the 911 emergency phone system has fortunately saved millions of lives by directing the calls to crisis responders close to the person in need.

Recently, some analysts announced that they have figure out a way to disable the 911 system for a lengthened period by quickly performing the TDoS attack on 911 call centers, also known as the telephony denial-of-service assault.

The method includes making phones mechanically call the 911 service without their owner’s permission or knowledge thus crowding the call center lines which will lead to the failure of real callers to reach the service.

Researchers suggested that to interrupt the emergency response system throughout the whole state of North Carolina, they would only need to infect approximately 6,000 phones, an activity which seems to be very easy for hackers to achieve. Moreover, to disrupt the 911 system throughout the United States, hackers would need to infect around 200,000 phones.

The analysts at Ben Gurion University in Israel stated that an attacker would this way be able to determine 33 percent of callers to stop trying to contact the 911 service.

The director of R&D at the University’s Cyber Security Center, Mordechai Guri, said that while routers and call centers operate under normal circumstances at near capacity, increasing the call numbers, just a bit could overpower them.

Mordechai also said that he and his team are aware of the vulnerability for a TDoS attack and that they brought the situation to the attention of DHS a few years ago.

The manager of government operations for the National Emergency Number Association, Trey Forgety, declared that the emergency response system is highly limited, usually less than five circuits operate all 911 requests for a state.

Annually, the Americans make more than 240 million calls to approximately 7,000 call centers across the country, and around 70 percent of the requests come from mobile telephones. However, experts believe that the emergency response systems haven’t kept pace with the needed technology to deal with such a great volume of calls.

Image source: Wikipedia

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Karen Jackson

Karen Jackson has always been passionate about technology. All the way through high-school she immersed herself in computers and web-design. Her ambitious nature helped her become a pro in Adobe Photoshop only by watching online videos and working with the program herself. This is also the program that she mostly uses in the creation of websites at her work-place. Technological innovation and gadgets that push the boundaries of what we are comfortable with have always fascinated her, so expect to see some weird gadget reviews coming from her.