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Satanica

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A statement from the City of DeSoto reads:

After consulting with the technical experts who help us to operate the outdoor emergency sirens in our area, and based on the widespread impact to these sirens, it appears that DeSoto’s outdoor warning siren system was hacked at approximately 2:30am Tuesday morning. This action appears to have been intentional and the city’s outdoor warning siren system is not operational at this time. Therefore we have turned this matter over to the police departments from the impacted cities for investigation.

The main purpose of these sirens is to alert people who are outside during inclement weather to seek shelter inside. Once a person is safe inside, the most important thing that they can do is to secure the most current and accurate weather information possible. The first step should be for all DeSoto residents to sign up for the Code Red emergency weather warning system which was not impacted. This can be found at www.desototexas.gov/codered . We then advise our residents to visit the National Weather Service Ft. Worth website at www.weather.gov/fwd or go to the emergency weather radio station NOAA Weather Radio for Texas online www.weather.gov/fwd/radio . Finally, tune in weather coverage specific to the Dallas Area on any of our local news broadcasts. We strongly advise DeSoto residents to monitor these weather information sources given the potential severe weather overnight tonight and tomorrow.

We will continue to make every effort to safely restore our outdoor siren system and to work with our law enforcement agencies in any follow-up investigations that are conducted.


The City of Lancaster also issued a statement.

Based on the widespread impact to the outdoor sirens located in two separate cities, including Lancaster, it has become evident that a person or persons with hostile intent deliberately targeted our combined outdoor warning siren network. The incident occurred at approximately 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

Sabotage against a public warning system is more than vandalism. It is a criminal act and those responsible are subject to arrest and prosecution. Accordingly, we have consulted with technical experts who help to operate the outdoor emergency sirens in our area and turned information over to our police for investigation.

The main purpose of outdoor sirens is to alert people who are outside during inclement weather to seek shelter inside. The most important thing that a person can do once they are safely inside is to secure the most current and accurate weather information. The first step should be for all Lancaster residents to sign up for Code Red emergency weather warnings at http://lancaster-tx.com/. We then advise our residents to visit the National Weather Service Ft. Worth website at www.weather.gov/fwd/ or listen to the emergency weather radio station NOAA Weather Radio for Texas online. Finally, tune in to weather coverage specific to the Dallas Area on any of our local news broadcasts. We strongly advise Lancaster residents to monitor these weather information sources given the potential for severe weather today and tomorrow.

We will continue to make every effort to safely restore our outdoor siren system and to work with our law enforcement agencies in further investigations. Given this new investigation, we will not be able to comment any further at this point.

We will utilize the CodeRed System, City Website, and all Social Media outlets to remain in communication.


Many people woke up early Tuesday morning when emergency sirens started going off in parts of Dallas County around 2:30 a.m., but there was no emergency.

Police in Lancaster and Desoto were swamped with calls. Earlier this morning, DeSoto police told WFAA that it was a "system malfunction" that caused it.

Tri-City Dispatch, which controls the sirens, investigated the cause of the glitch.
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The City of DeSoto and City of Lancaster posted on their respective Twitter and Facebook pages, alerting the community that it was not an emergency.

In a statement, City of DeSoto said it also sent out a message to subscribers to the CODE RED emergency weather notification service that sirens "were malfunctioning and that there was not an actual emergency."

DeSoto, according to its city website, has 10 outdoor warning sirens. Lancaster has 20.

City officials now face looming questions muck as Dallas officials did in April of 2017.

Back then, someone hacked the city's 150 plus siren network and turned a majority of them on.

The city told media outlets that its outdoor warning siren system could be turned on by using a radio signal that wasn't encrypted.
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Spokespersons were unavailble to tell WFAA when the siren network would be back up and running officially.
https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/e...-say/287-fef3a3a5-69ea-4f8a-b048-0fa9f5a4a13f
 
The city told media outlets that its outdoor warning siren system could be turned on by using a radio signal that wasn't encrypted.
That is foolish of them.

Since both ends of the circuit are under the control of the same agency, implementing shared-secret cryptography would be very easy, a no-brainer. Public-key crypto would allow for authentication of the command, stopping that sort of nonsense before it even has a chance of starting. Combine either with direct-sequence spread spectrum modulation, and the odds of defeating the system go way down.

--Al
 
@Alf - You're giving them way to much credit in the brains department than I do. This was a system built by the lowest bidder and probably maintained by folks that know even less. 'Security through obscurity' is the norm until they run into snafu's like this.
 
I can't wait to find out if it's the same lapse as found in the Dallas case in 2017 and if the Tri-City Dispatch has any connection to the contractor who was responsible for Dallas.

You would think these municipalities would be more up to date and not think they can be relaxed about it, because it won't happen to them. It should be a wake-up call to the folks who rely on that system in S Dallas County.
 
This was a system built by the lowest bidder
If the project specs were written in the past decade and didn't mandate security then whoever wrote them needs to at least be reprimanded then sent for reeducation, if not terminated. This is comparable to a SCADA system, and they all mandate security.

--Al
 
BEDFORD, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) – The city of Bedford confirms outdoor warning sirens have gone off two nights in a row.

The emergency warning sirens sounded in the northwest part of the city without anyone activating them.

The city says its system was not hacked and they are trying to figure out what caused the sirens to go off.
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Meantime, the cities of DeSoto and Lancaster are still working to upgrade their siren network after leaders there said their systems were hacked.

The sirens went off in the middle of the night last week.

Those sirens remain disabled for now.

The cities have also brought in federal investigators to try to find whomever was responsible.
 
You know that some little hacker shit is giggling himself into a coma in his mother's basement through all this, gleefully reading all the news stories.
 
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