A DDoS attack paralyzed 911 for several hours.
On August 4, the Central Texas 911 emergency call system became unavailable for several hours due to a DDoS attack.
According to the Capital Area Council of Governments (CAPCOG), an organization that manages the emergency call system, hackers flooded call centers with fake calls, causing outages in the system. The attack affected call services in 7 of the 10 counties under CAPCOG's jurisdiction, affecting 21 Central Texas law enforcement and emergency agencies, including the Police Department, Fire Department, ambulance, and district sheriff's offices.
During the outage, CAPCOG provided citizens with an alternative telephone number to contact the emergency service in case of life-threatening emergencies.
Around 13:00, the 911 call center notified CAPCOG of the attack. Experts quickly found out that calls were coming from AT&T numbers, and in collaboration with the provider, they were able to identify and disable the numbers. The system was restored to normal operation by 20:00.
CAPCOG continues to work with AT&T to prevent similar attacks in the future. AT&T has confirmed the launch of an investigation into the incident. CAPCOG also notified the federal authorities about the incident.
Source
On August 4, the Central Texas 911 emergency call system became unavailable for several hours due to a DDoS attack.
According to the Capital Area Council of Governments (CAPCOG), an organization that manages the emergency call system, hackers flooded call centers with fake calls, causing outages in the system. The attack affected call services in 7 of the 10 counties under CAPCOG's jurisdiction, affecting 21 Central Texas law enforcement and emergency agencies, including the Police Department, Fire Department, ambulance, and district sheriff's offices.
During the outage, CAPCOG provided citizens with an alternative telephone number to contact the emergency service in case of life-threatening emergencies.
Around 13:00, the 911 call center notified CAPCOG of the attack. Experts quickly found out that calls were coming from AT&T numbers, and in collaboration with the provider, they were able to identify and disable the numbers. The system was restored to normal operation by 20:00.
CAPCOG continues to work with AT&T to prevent similar attacks in the future. AT&T has confirmed the launch of an investigation into the incident. CAPCOG also notified the federal authorities about the incident.
Source
