There are suspicions that a widespread cyber incident may be behind a disruption in 911 services affecting four states in the United States, resulting in millions of people being unable to access emergency assistance.
On Wednesday evening, all of South Dakota and certain locations in Nevada, Texas, and Nebraska reported 911 service outages.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) a week earlier issued warnings regarding the heightened vulnerability of 911 services to cyber attacks as they transition to digital platforms.
The assessment released by the DHS, which ABC News reported on hours before the disruptions occurred, raised concerns about the potential exploitation of emergency systems to retrieve sensitive information.
Here’s what The Daily Mail reported:
A mass cyber attack is suspected to have caused a 911 outage that hit four states across the country, leaving millions without emergency assistance.
Cities as big as Las Vegas, as well as the entire state of South Dakota and locales in Texas and Nebraska announced the outages on Wednesday night.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has warned of increased risks of cyber attacks on 911 services as they have migrated to digital systems.
In analysis compiled by the agency and published by ABC News just hours before the outages, they outlined concerns of how emergency services can be exploited for sensitive data.
The bulletin said that ransomware attacks have ‘disrupted the networks of police department and 911 call center operations’.
Here’s the article released by ABC News hours before the disruptions occurred:
Calling 911 is meant to save lives. But the emergency service, and others like it, are also viewed as ripe targets for criminally minded cyber-attackers, according to a new federal assessment – and any vulnerability in those critical networks can expose victims to a multitude of dangerous ripple effects.
The analysis, compiled by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and obtained by ABC News, outlines concerns that the Emergency Service Sector can be exploited and mined for sensitive data, in turn hampering medical and law enforcement services and posing an ongoing threat to personal information and public safety.
“Cybercriminal exploitation of data stolen during ransomware attacks against the Emergency Service Sector (ESS) likely poses a persistent criminal threat due to the exposure and availability of victims’ personal information,” according to the April 10 bulletin.
Ransomware attacks have “disrupted the networks of police department and 911 call center operations,” the bulletin continued, putting computer-aided dispatching services out of commission and forcing emergency services “to revert to manual dispatching to sustain their operations.”