State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

Transitional 911 systems have ‘very, very broad attack surface,’ working group warns

StateScoop: 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. But in a session during the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s annual summit, Laurie Flaherty, coordinator of the U.S. Transportation Department’s National 911 Program, said 911 poses “unique challenges” to the field of cybersecurity that practitioners across the country must reckon with.

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