Emergency Alert System devices vulnerable to hacker attacks, researchers say
Devices used by many radio and TV stations to broadcast
emergency messages as part of the U.S. Emergency Alert System (EAS) contain
critical vulnerabilities that expose them to remote hacker attacks, according
to researchers from security consultancy firm IOActive.
The EAS is a national public warning system that can be
used by the president or local and state authorities to deliver emergency
information to the general public. This information is transmitted by
broadcasters, cable television systems, wireless cable systems, satellite
digital audio radio service (SDARS) providers, and direct broadcast satellite
(DBS) providers.
EAS participants are required to install and maintain
special decoding and encoding devices on their infrastructure that allow the
transmission and relay of EAS messages.
IOActive Labs researcher Mike Davis found several
critical vulnerabilities in EAS devices that are widely used by radio and TV
stations nationwide, said Cesar Cerrudo, chief technology officer of IOActive,
Wednesday via email.
The vulnerabilities allow attackers to remotely
compromise the devices and broadcast fake EAS messages, he said. "We
contacted CERT [U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team] almost a month ago and
CERT is coordinating with the vendor to get the issues fixed."
At least two products from one of the main vendors of EAS
devices are affected, so many radio and TV stations could be vulnerable, he
said.
Cerrudo declined to name the vulnerable products or the
affected vendor before the vulnerabilities get fixed. He hopes that this will
happen soon so that IOActive researchers can discuss their findings at the RSA
2013 security conference in San Francisco later this month.
"We found some devices directly connected to the
Internet and we think that it's possible that hackers are currently exploiting
some of these vulnerabilities or some other flaws," Cerrudo said.
On Monday, hackers compromised the EAS equipment of
several local TV stations in Michigan and Montana. The attackers interrupted
regular programming to broadcast an audio message alerting viewers that
"the bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and are attacking the
living."
The affected stations included ABC 10, CW 5 and Northern
Michigan University's WNMU-TV 13 in Marquette, Michigan, and CBS affiliate KRTV
in Great Falls, Montana.
"The hacker responsible for creating and airing a
bogus Emergency Alert System message on the air at ABC 10 -- CW 5 Monday
evening and at least three other TV stations, including WNMU-TV 13 at Northern
Michigan University, has been found," ABC 10 station manager Cynthia
Thompson said Tuesday in a blog post. "It has been determined that a 'back
door' attack allowed the hacker to access the security of the EAS
equipment."
"Providing Emergency Alert information is a vital
duty of a broadcaster," Thompson said. "The nature of the message
Monday night was not necessarily dangerous, but the fact that the system was
vulnerable to outside intrusion is a danger."
Cerrudo agreed. These issues are critical because next
time hackers might use these systems to generate real panic instead of making
zombie apocalypse jokes, he said.
For example, they could send an emergency message
claiming there's an ongoing terrorist attack using anthrax that has already
made victims, he said. "This would really scare the population and
depending how the attack is performed it could have drastic consequences."
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