WASHINGTON – Smart phones are vulnerable to cyber attacks on 911
centers, Senator Charles Schumer said Wednesday. Some 80 percent of 911
calls come from cell phones and he said flooding the emergency centers
could be crippled.
The senator pointed to a study that showed that 6,000 infected cell phones
deluging 911 centers in North Carolina could cause havoc in a real emergency
situation. It would only 200,000 infected devices to cripple an entire
state.
Schumer is calling on Homeland Security and the FCC to come up with a
plan to prevent the vulnerability of 911 to cyber attacks.
“It’s just a matter of time before some hacker is going to
try to do this, and you all know the consequences even if in one part
of our state or our country, the 911 system goes down,” he said.
“Our country’s critical infrastructure is far too valuable
to would-be evil-doers. So we have to do more and fast to ward off this
metastasizing threat.”
The senator admits he doesn’t have the answer, but that is what
the federal agencies need to come up with ASAP.
