Hackers set off 156 emergency sirens in Dallas over dozen times

A hacker set off all of 156 emergency sirens in city of Dallas on Friday midnight. According to reports, the sirens started to blare before midnight on Friday and was shut off for the first time by city officials, but it was hacked again and set off almost a dozen times prompting the officials to shut down the system entirely around 1.20 am on Saturday morning provoking the fear among residents.

The city tried to inform its residents that there was no emergency via Twitter, but the 911 system was flooded with calls and it received more than 4,400 calls between 11.30 pm Friday and 3 am Saturday morning. As the 911 call center was already short staffed, it staggered to reassure the residents that there was no actual emergency and to maintain peace in the city.

As of noon on Saturday, the city officials have discovered the root of the problem and trying to fix the issue. Apparently, the system has been reactivated and the city is working to implement more safeguards to minimize the damage of compromised system.

Officials still haven’ t had a clue for who was responsible for the hacking, but Rocky Vaz, director of Dallas office of Emergency Management said " with a good deal of confidence that this was someone outside our system" and in the Dallas area.

City officials are taking this incident more seriously and it raised questions among the residents. What kind of vulnerabilities does the system have? And How protected the city will be if it is hacked by external sources? Improvements must be made for the safety of citizens.