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Security News

Emergency Presidential Alert Texts Could Be Faked, Researchers Say (cnet.com) 36

Posted by msmash from the security-flaws dept.
Fake presidential alerts could be sent to tens of thousands of phones, according to a report out of the University of Colorado Boulder. From a report: Researchers say they found a backdoor that let them mimic alerts and blast fake messages to people confined to a small area, such as a city block or a sports stadium. The researchers developed software mimicking the presidential alert format and then used commercially available wireless transmitters to send the messages to phones within their radius. The team had a success rate of hitting 90% of all phones in the area it tested.
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Emergency Presidential Alert Texts Could Be Faked, Researchers Say More

Emergency Presidential Alert Texts Could Be Faked, Researchers Say

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  • speaking of undying appreciation (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I'd like to just take a moment to appreciate Bruce perens.
    Creator of BusyBox
    He posts here sometimes
    Much respect dude

  • I only believe the official Twitter account (Score:3, Insightful)

    by olsmeister ( 1488789 ) on Friday June 21, 2019 @07:07PM (#58802214)
    Anything else is likely spoofed.

    • Believing who the source of the message is, and believing the content of the message, are two very different things.

  • Well, finally a bright spot! Thank goodness el Presidente has wrung all the legitimate concern out of the weight of a single social media message.

    • He's probably about to go around the bend and start giving play-by-plays on his bowel movements while he's twitter ranting. They're just trying to get ahead of it by putting what they think is "plausible deniablity" in front of it. Otherwise we're getting a *presidential Alert "I need some fucking toilet tissue!"

      • Reminds me to update the campfire sketch with the mafia boss asking for his most important papers while on the loo.... Maybe about about keeping the briefs short and clean...

  • How are these normally authenticated? Is it just an unsigned SS7 message?

    That could cause a ruckus on Primary Night.

  • how could anybody tell? I guess maybe if they started to appear calm, rational and well thought out...

  • This really sux! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but you can't turn presidential alerts off on any phone in the US. At least none of my Samsung phones will let it be turned off - even on the custom firmwares.

  • If this were a tweet stream for ... Kentucky Fried McDonalds' staff to know when to give away sludge-burgers on a 2-for-one for the next half hour, it would get "hacked" in a matter of hours, and the hacking wouldn't stop until a significant number of basement-dwelling hackers were dead.

    Any more valuable, credible or important system would be getting more attention from the hackers, for LOLz, bragging rights, and free penis-extensions. On the one hand - the system has to be secure against hacking. On the o

    • Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"

      Cite your source, hm'kay? [xkcd.com]

      • Why would I cite the estimable Mr Monroe (spelling? I can't be bothered to Wiki it) when I've used that signature for pretty much as long as XKCD has been in existence, and based it on several monographs and conference volumes on the evolution of birds from the likes of Rauhut, Wellnhofer, Feduccia, Chiappe and a considerable number of others. I'm pretty sure I was using the signature last millennium when I went to visit Solenhofen as a side-trip to watching the 1999 solar eclipse.

        Feduccia fought a strong

        • I apologize for my snarkiness. It did seem like your sig was a verbatim lift from that XKCD panel. But seeing that you have a 5-digit id, I believe your explanation.

          • If Monroe had lifted his line from my .sig (I think he's done AMAs here, and possibly even has an account), I'd be dead chuffed.
            • No obvious date on the site. Hmmmph. But with a high number, it's probably relatively recent. Unless he deliberately salts his numbers.

              • I also looked for a date, before I replied to your post replying to mine. I didn't find one either. So I deferred to your claim.

                Perhaps you have started a meme. I wish you luck claiming it.

      • > Cite your source, hm'kay?

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] An almost hour-long video. Dr Richard Prum is an ornithologist, and a professor at Yale specializing in ornithology, feather-growth and coloration. TLDR;
        * birds are theropod dinosaurs
        * dinosaurs were stem birds
        * feathers evolved as external covering for dinosaurs long before birds showed up.
        * there has been a spate of recent discoveries in China of feathered dinos.
        * researchers have gone back and taken much closer looks at previously-discovered

  • Top Ten Signs a Presidential Text is Authentic (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Frank Burly ( 4247955 ) on Friday June 21, 2019 @09:54PM (#58802708)
    10. Unnatural orange glow in the sky is described as "Gorgeous."
    9. Mysterious object is "Probably nothing, I can hardly see it from the 14th hole."
    8. Guarantees that it isn't aliens from some shithole planet.
    7. Contains a link to a Fox & Friends segment on the 20th anniversary of Armageddon.
    6. Cofefe!
    5. Laments that the coming cataclysm will destroy several fantastic golf courses and their surrounding states.
    4. Frequent typos when using his non-pussy-grabbing hand.
    3. "The good news is that some of you will actually become coal!"
    2. It is signed: "Buy three steaks, get an unbelievable deal on the 4th!"
    1. It is sent collect.

  • News at 11.

    The protocol was flawed upon inception. Any decent tech could develop a secure authenticated system with a group of 5 people in less than a year, our phones have the power to authenticate messages with large keys. This 'thing' was developed over many years with hundreds of people. What do you expect.

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