A new report has found that America’s emergency helpline number, 911, is vulnerable to Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Interestingly, the threat of attack has previously been issued by Department of Homeland Security as well as the FBI. Mark James, Security Specialist at ESET commented below.

“These days DDoS attacks are easy to accomplish and can be relatively low cost to put in place. As technology gets cheaper, and the ability for botnets to infect more users thus making themselves stronger, seems easier and easier. The art of causing problems through brute force is now more readily available than ever before.

In this modern day of internet everywhere, we take for granted the ability to access websites as and when we want them. When a website gets a DDoS attack those services become unavailable, now it’s not such a big problem when it’s a news delivery site but when it’s a service it’s a very different kettle of fish, and even more of a problem if it disrupts emergency or medical services. If you’re unable to access services in an emergency the worst case scenario could be life threatening.

An effective defence to DDoS can be as easy as utilising third party services but there may be consequences for data security or disruption to the smooth user experience. Effective security is only achieved through multi-layered protection.”

Source: http://www.informationsecuritybuzz.com/hacker-news/911-vulnerable-ddos-attacks/