Cyberattack Downed a 911 Systems in 12 States

For more than 12 hours, 911 call centers in more than a dozen states were paralyzed by a cyberattack, according to The Wall Street Journal. The attack used "zombie" calls to inundate the systems, sometimes with hundreds of calls. The attack happened on Oct. 25 and Oct. 26. in Texas, Florida, California, Washington, and elsewhere. Federal and state officials have long-worried that the nation's outdated 911 system has become vulnerable to hackers and could easily be downed through these means. Luckily, the October attack has not been linked to any publicly known deaths or serious injuries. “If this was a nation-state actor that wanted to damage or disable 911 systems during an attack, they could have succeeded spectacularly,” said Trey Forgety, director of government affairs at a 911 trade group called the National Emergency Number Association. “This was a serious wake-up call.”