Hackers managed to cyber attack 156 alarms, triggering false siren and unnecessary panic for hours among the residents of Dallas, Texas. As per the numbers available with us, Dallas has over 186 alarms meant to sound danger to the area’s populace. Out of the said number, 156 of them were breached by cyber-crooks triggering false danger which lasted from late Friday night to the early hours of Saturday.
Note- Emergency Sirens are meant to alert citizens to harsh weather conditions and other incidents. But in this case, the hackers managed to interpret the alarms in such a way that the alerts sounded as a warning sign of a bomb or something, a missile.
Rocky Vaz, the Director of Emergency Management for the city of Dallas suspects that it’s a mischief of somebody from inside and believes that it was carried out by a city-based geek.
In general, occasionally such data breaches trigger false emergency sirens. But the hacks usually manage to trigger a couple of sirens at the most.
But the most recent data breach can be classified into the largest ever category with regards to emergency sirens. As soon as the alarms triggered panic, residents started to flood 911 with phone calls. Officials from the emergency response center had a very tough weekend while dealing with the situation.
The cyber attack took place at 10:40 Pm on Friday Night and ended at around 1:20 Am of Saturday when the technicians from the response team chose to cut off the power supply to the sirens.
The law enforcement officials of Dallas in coordination with the Emergency Response Team have launched a probe on this issue. They have ruled out the possibility that it was an attack sponsored by a State Actor and added that the hacker who caused this panic will be prosecuted seriously.
