ABC News reports on their own hiring of “hackers” to disrupt the Huntington Beach, CA police department. (Start reading at the “Testing the system” heading.)
They tried to trick an officer into leaving his post to investigate a false “emergency.” They tried to infect the Chief’s computer with a virus. (Fortunately, neither of these attacks ended up working; but it wasn’t for lack of trying.)
What was ABC News thinking? Trying to disrupt a working police department, which the citizens were relying upon to cope with any real emergencies that developed, was an amazingly irresponsible thing to do.
The article implies, but does not directly say, that the police department consented to this test, but was kept in the dark about which day it would occur. If so, then the police department needs their heads examined just as badly as ABC News does.
I’m all in favor of testing critical systems, but not by mounting surprise attacks on the systems that ordinary citizens’ lives depend upon.
[Link credit: disLEXia]
