As 911 goes digital, security and training pose major challenges

mood · Oct 2, 2019

As 911 goes digital, security and training pose major challenges
October 2, 2019
https://statescoop.com/next-generation-911-security-training-challenges/

Government computer systems are frequently updated as a matter of course, but a sanguine nationwide effort to shift the country’s aging 911 systems onto a digital platform belies a moral dilemma that could touch the lives of everyone who might one day call for help in an emergency.

But along with the advantages of a more advanced digital network will also come new security risks that today’s outdated analog systems have had the accidental good fortune to be insulated from.
The lack of connectivity in decades-old computer systems is both the reason they’re considered outdated and the primary reason they don’t get hacked.

The implicit question facing governments updating these systems is whether the new capabilities they are enabling will save more lives than will be threatened when a next-generation 911 system is inevitably hacked and taken offline.
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mood · Mar 14, 2020

DDoS attacks could affect next generation 911 call systems
March 13, 2020
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2020/03/13/ddos-911/

In the study the researchers evaluated the impact of DDoS attacks on the current (E911) and next generation 911 (NG911) infrastructures in North Carolina.
Implementation of NG911
In recent years, organizations have experienced countless DDoS attacks, during which internet-connected devices are flooded with traffic – [...] When an attacker ties up all the available connections with malicious traffic, no legitimate information – like calling 911 in a real emergency – can make it through.

“In this study, we found that only 6,000 bots are sufficient to significantly compromise the availability of a state’s 911 services and only 200,000 bots can jeopardize the entire United States,” Dr. Guri explains.
To demonstrate how DDoS attacks could affect 911 call systems, the researchers created a detailed simulation of North Carolina’s 911 infrastructure, and a general simulation of the entire U.S. emergency-call system.
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Using only 6,000 infected phones, it is possible to effectively block 911 calls from 20% of the state’s landline callers, and half of the mobile customers. “In our simulation, even people who called back four or five times would not be able to reach a 911 operator to get help,” Dr. Guri says.

“Many say that the new NG911 solves the DDoS problem because callers can be connected to PSAPs around the country, not just locally,” Dr. Mirsky explains.
“But the system would still need to communicate locally to dispatch police, medical and fire services. As a result, the despair rate is more likely to be 56% with 6,000 bots –worse than using the original E911 infrastructure.”
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mood · Jun 19, 2020

Why 911's 'tragic' shortcomings need immediate attention
June 18, 2020
https://statescoop.com/why-911s-tragic-shortcomings-need-immediate-attention/

Among the chief concerns facing 911 services in the U.S. today, Fontes said, is the need for Congress to pass a bill supplying $9 billion to $12 billion for a nationwide upgrade to next-generation 911, digital upgrades that allow PSAPs and their communications networks to share videos and photos and seamlessly transfer caller data across jurisdictions.

With 80 percent of 911 callers using smartphones, Fontes said, it doesn’t make sense to continue using outdated, analog technology.
NENA’s surveys revealed that some PSAPs have been forced to delay maintenance — and possibly security upgrades — to systems that are already decades out of date.
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911 call centers have enough capacity so far, but upgrades are delayed (April 7, 2020)

The survey also showed that the pandemic is prompting emergency call centers to delay upgrades and system testing. Roughly half said they are currently delaying “non-essential” maintenance or upgrade programs, most of which were to be conducted by the vendors who make the equipment.
Longer-term upgrades to emergency call systems, the transition to “next-generation 911” platforms capable of handling video calls and sharing data across jurisdictions, have largely been put on hold during the pandemic.

But Fontes said the health crisis illustrates yet another reason why the country needs a modern platform for managing emergency response, particularly since virtualized call centers would allow call-takers to work from home if needed.
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mood · Jun 25, 2020

Fairfax County, Virginia, is ready for next-generation 911
June 22, 2020
https://statescoop.com/fairfax-county-virginia-is-ready-for-next-generation-911/

The Virginia Information Technologies Agency announced Monday that Fairfax County has completed the first deployment of next-generation 911 in the commonwealth.

A new digital system, completed earlier this month, will eventually allow the more than 1 million residents of Fairfax County, which sits just outside Washington, D.C., to share multimedia like photos and videos with 911 call centers, as well as have their precise location data more easily shared when their calls are routed between call centers.
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It’s expected to be several years before the regulatory framework and telecommunications standards are in place allowing 911 callers to avail themselves of this new functionality, but Steve McMurrer, a 911 system administrator the county, said this announcement means Fairfax will be ready when next-generation 911 technology truly arrives.

“You couldn’t send pictures to the traditional telephony network because it was just a voice network. A caller today could not dial 911 and send us a picture. They’d have to do it through an over-the-top message.”
The ability to share richer information and seamlessly transfer call data, McMurrer said, will prove especially useful in light of the workforce struggles faced by many public safety answering points.

Fairfax, Virginia’s most populous, was the first step in a $58 million statewide project.
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mood · Jul 31, 2020

Tennessee to test cybersecurity of its next-generation 911 systems
July 30, 2020
https://statescoop.com/tennessee-test-cybersecurity-next-generation-911-systems/

Tennessee, one of the states furthest along in adopting next-generation 911 technology, has hired a consulting firm to evaluate the cybersecurity preparedness of the state’s emergency call centers.

The company, Mission Critical Partners, said Wednesday that it will conduct assessments of Tennessee’s public safety answering points — at least those that opt into the review process — in search of vulnerabilities on an increasingly digital network.
While many states are still converting their decades-old analog systems to internet-based platforms, Tennessee led states in adopting digital 911 systems and is now completing a conversion of its IP-based call routing technology to a platform designed with next-generation 911 in mind, called ESInet.
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[...] this evaluation will help prepare the state to eventually push next-generation technology live to the public.

“They recognize that cyberattacks and vulnerabilities are increasing every day as they deploy the IP networks for 911 services,” Falls said. “As next-gen 911 is maturing, so are the standards for next-generation 911, and as the standards are evolving, cybersecurity has been an increased focus.”
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“Harming the public’s ability to call for help is something that a foreign state actor might absolutely want to do,” he said.
Worse, he said, is that 911 systems are, by design, necessarily open to the public, which makes them more difficult to secure than some other IP-based systems. Some locales have more resources to secure their 911 systems than others, Abley said, leading to a decidedly “uneven” landscape of cybersecurity practices inside the nation’s 911 system.
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mood · Sep 25, 2020

Transitional 911 systems have 'very, very broad attack surface,' working group warns
September 24, 2020
https://statescoop.com/transitional...ery-broad-attack-surface-working-group-warns/

Members of a federal working group to guide the nation’s transition to an IP-based 911 system warned during a virtual event Wednesday that the emergency call system has a particularly large attack surface during this transitional period.

States and their emergency call centers have been upgrading their equipment and regional telecommunications infrastructure for several years in anticipation of next-generation 911, which will allow sharing of data like photos and videos.
Brandon Abley, a technical issues director with the National Emergency Number Association and member of the working group, said that “transitional 911” poses threats that no one has seen before.

“The recent recommendations that have been developed by CSRIC … consider a very, very broad attack surface,” Abley said.
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Attacks against the 911 system and public safety answering points are already prevalent [...] recent survey data showing that more than one-third of PSAPs reported experiencing cybersecurity incidents in the past five years that “impacted their ability to communicate.”

Abley said today’s transitional 911 systems are vulnerable to the attacks launched against legacy systems, such as telephony denial of service attacks, which are designed to overwhelm traditional phone systems, and the IP-based attacks that are common today, as next-generation 911 capabilities come online.
He also warned of ransomware threats, noting there have been “a lot of high-profile” ransomware attacks against 911 systems in recent years.
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mood · Feb 5, 2021

Nebraska plans to complete next-generation 911 by end of 2022
February 4, 2021
https://statescoop.com/nebraska-lumen-ng911-2022/

The State of Nebraska plans to complete its deployment of next-generation 911 by the end of next year, a public safety official there told StateScoop on Thursday.

Like many states, Nebraska is upgrading its decades-old analog communications networks to a digital platform that promises to offer new capabilities, like easy sharing of photos and video between callers and public safety answering points, or PSAPs, and improve network up-time through statewide redundancy and data-sharing functionality.
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In a press release announcing the partnership with Lumen last week, Gov. Pete Ricketts said it will equip the state’s first responders “with more information that will help keep them, and all Nebraskans, safer.”

“It’s important that the system be built with the necessary capacity and redundancy to ensure that 911 calls are answered without interruption and that the GIS data can be as accurate as possible for the geospatial call routing, and that the system be secure from cyber vulnerabilities,” Schram told StateScoop.
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Amid cybersecurity concerns surrounding next-generation 911, Schram said network redundancy is a crucial feature.

“That’s why you want redundancy and resiliency on a statewide basis,” he said. “If you have one 911 center that’s inoperable that you have neighboring PSAPs to handle those calls.”
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As 911 goes digital, security and training pose major challenges

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