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Note: Homeland Security details vulnerabilities in emergency alert equipment that have been exploited to create hoax broadcasts.
"The bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living," according to an Emergency Alert System (EAS) warning broadcast earlier this year on a CBS affiliate television station in Montana. "Do not attempt to approach or apprehend these bodies as they are considered extremely dangerous."
Of course, zombies weren't really attacking. Rather, a hacker had exploited unknown vulnerabilities in the EAS to broadcast the fake warning.
How the attacker managed that feat is no longer a mystery, after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a security alert that Digital Alert Systems DASDEC-I and DASDEC-II appliances, as well as the Monroe Electronics One-Net E189 Emergency Alert System, contain multiple vulnerabilities that could be exploited to provide remote access to and control of the EAS equipment.
What's the risk? "An attacker who gains control of one or more DASDEC systems can disrupt these stations' ability to transmit and could disseminate false emergency information over a large geographic area," according...