City Manager update on outdoor warning siren system

City of Dallas sent this bulletin at 04/10/2017 03:14 PM CDT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 10, 2017

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

Richard Hill -  Public Information Office
richard.hill@dallascityhall.com
(214) 243-2042

City Manager update on outdoor warning siren system

Dallas - Here is an update from City Manager T.C. Broadnax that was shared with Mayor and Council today:

City staff is continuing to test the outdoor warning siren system, using tools that will not involve activating the sirens. We believe that the City’s siren system was compromised Friday night. For security reasons, we cannot discuss the details of how this was done, but we believe it came from the Dallas area. We are taking Friday night’s incident very seriously.

In addition to the city siren system, I have begun the process of looking at critical systems city-wide, to examine what, if any vulnerabilities may exist. These include the water system, radio network, 911/311, police-fire dispatch, flood warning system, financial systems, etc. We will come back to Council on Wednesday with an action item and a plan to move forward with these assessments.

Over the weekend, after extensive consultation and discussions with siren engineers, the city has implemented several improvements to prevent this from happening again. We have added extra encryption and other security measures to the system.

This incident is being investigated by Dallas Police Department and several federal partners.
DPD is taking the lead in this investigation, working with the FBI and agencies that specialize in these kinds of incidents. They are gathering complete information on our system. Looking at how it interfaces with other systems in the city and validate what we think happened. Once that is confirmed, next steps include finding the source of the compromise.

I want to stress that the city’s warning siren system is fully operational. We are asking the public to refrain from calling 911 or 311 if they hear siren activity. If the sirens are activated for any reason, information will be posted on the City’s social media channels.