14 DAY TRIAL // Over the past weekend, the citizens of Lemont, a village in Illinois, US, heard for the first time in their life the sound of their sirens warning of a military attack. No one knows what caused the seven sirens to sound, but authorities suspect that hackers are involved, since none of the individuals with access to them is responsible.
According to the Chicago Tribune, it all started on Saturday night when three of the tornado sirens began sounding in Evanston, Illinois.
The next day, at around 9 PM, all seven of Lemont’s sirens were activated for a period of three minutes. An hour later, people were once again falsely warned, but this time the sirens sounded for around 30 minutes, until their power was cut off.
The sounds made by the sirens alternated, warning of bad weather, but also of military attacks.
The interesting thing in both cases is that the sirens can only be triggered from the specific places by a limited number of people, all of whom have confirmed that they aren’t responsible.
While officials from Evanston have failed to appoint a cause for the incident, Lemont’s Police Chief Kevin Shaughnessy believes that “an unauthorized person” may be responsible, especially since the company that maintains the sirens has confirmed that none of those with access activated them and there aren’t any signs of mechanical malfunctions.
Shaughnessy explained that the sirens are activated via a radio signal that contains a unique code and someone may have copied it.
To prevent future unauthorized access, the village has implemented additional security mechanisms.
The main problem is that in areas where the chances of bad weather are high, unnecessary panic could be caused by the sound of the sirens.
On the other hand, this scenario once again reinforces the need for security mechanisms, not only on PCs and mobile phones, but also in other areas that until now haven't presented any interest to cybercriminals.