Cyber-Attacks on 911 Systems and the Risks they Pose: A Best Practice Approach

Cyber-Attacks on 911 Systems and the Risks they Pose: A Best Practice Approach

By Stephen Sussman, Carole Huberman, James Talerico
Email: SSussman@barry.edu, CHuberman@barry.edu, JTalerico@barry.edu

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Abstract: Cyber-attacks are seen as one of the most nefarious threats we face in the 21st century. Recent Cyber-attack incidents proved that they could cause a devastating effect on the systems. This research examines the risk to Public Safety Answering Points (PSAP). Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) and 9-11systems are critical communication infrastructures and are at risk in the United States. Taxpayers and user-based fees fund the cost of these systems. However, cyber-attacks on systems from domestic and international sources often render these services inoperable, reducing the effectiveness of any emergency response.

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INTRODUCTION

The Public Safety Answering Point is (PSAP) critical infrastructure that millions of Americans rely on to receive emergency services. Technology innovations created pressures that may alter the PSAP’s ability to receive phone calls and route first responders to emergencies. Intimidation of PSAPs comes from computer-based programs that enter and take control of a PSAP’s computer systems, eventually holding them for ransom. Moreover, threats emerge from denial of service (DoS) attacks against the PSAP’s computer phone system, preventing callers from requesting assistance. A lack of information on the issue of PSAP susceptibility to these technological threats exists. Moreover, there is even less discussion on industry best practices to prevent and mitigate the impact of a cyber-attack on a PSAP. A content analysis research design serves to gather and analyze the academic literature, articles from trade sources, and industry experts’ discussion of the specific vulnerabilities of PSAPs and best practices to mitigate the threats to these critical systems.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) and 9-1-1 systems are critical communications infrastructures in the United States. Taxpayers and user-based fees fund the costs of these systems. Herein lies the expectation when a citizen calls for service, the service will be available whenever a need occurs. Presently, nefarious cyber-attacks on systems from domestic and international sources often render these services inoperable, reducing the effectiveness of any emergency response.   

RESEARCH QUESTION

What is the nature of the attacks on PSAPs, and what are the best practices for reducing these risks?

LITERATURE REVIEW
Cyber-attacks are now not only limited to sneaking into the systems and stealing information, but they also appear as an operation type that can damage the communication and computer systems, energy and transportation networks, military command, and control systems of a country. Hence, cyber-attacks are one of the most critical threats we will face in the future. Recent Cyber-attack incidents proved that they could cause a devastating effect on the systems. (Liaropoulos & Tsihrintzis, 2014)

The U.S. (U.S. Department of Defense, 2011) states that cyberspace includes much more than computer networks. More importantly, as network systems are created using electromagnetic energy, wars in cyberspace also include the skills currently regarded as electronic warfare. By using electromagnetic energy, it would be possible to access and attack the networks, not connected to the internet directly, to query and break the electronic components of a network. This is a serious threat for armed forces. (Liaropoulos & Tsihrintzis, 2014)

Cyber power is defined as the ability to use cyberspace to gain an advantage by affecting the events on each theater of operations and power elements. Understood by this definition, in many countries, experts believe that cyber power encompasses a military theater of operations like land, sea, air, and space. Different from other conflict areas, cyber provides efficiency to every one of the national power elements. (Liaropoulos & Tsihrintzis, 2014)

The internet is one of the most important elements that constitute cyberspace; however, cyberspace is not just limited to the internet. Many systems and hardware, such as communication networks, military networks close to the outside world, energy distribution networks, cell phones, software‐based walkie‐talkies, electronic command systems, satellite systems, and unmanned aerial vehicles, are the elements of cyberspace. (Liaropoulos & Tsihrintzis, 2014)

The practice of gathering economic intelligence encompasses processing information pertinent to the economic sector with the goal of making succinct operational choices. It consists of activities aimed at obtaining information, surveillance of competitors, protecting strategic information, and capitalizing on this knowledge to influence, determine and control the global economic environment. The gathering of this information is also considered the most refined and up-to-date practice of economic warfare. However, it also requires the protection of strategic infrastructure, i.e., the backbone of any economic system. (Gaiser, 2017)

Today’s terrain of economic struggle does not have the stability of the old political alliances. Economic challenges minimized the maneuverability of military warfare, while the final objective of accumulating power and wealth remained unchanged. The variability of today’s international relations forces countries to tackle global competition in such a way as to achieve the best possible outcome in terms of profits, development, and wealth. Within such a framework, the countries return to be active co-protagonists of the economy, destined to implement various strategies of reform that allow the country-systems to remain, or return to be, competitive. (Gaiser, 2017)

The structures of economic intelligence are nothing other than the means by which the public and private sectors can collaborate efficiently for the common wellbeing in a historical period in which, if they remain separate; they are destined to perish. In this way, the entrepreneurial sector maintains its vitality while the state rediscovers a new legitimizing mission. (Gaiser, 2017)

Currently, a series of damaging actions via cyberwarfare, deemed a significant security issue, a full-scale problem for the national security of various countries, mainly when directed against critical infrastructure, require an official definition. Two definitions define a glossary of the attacks. The first comes from the NIST  – the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology – provided the first, “where critical infrastructure is defined as the systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters.” (Gaiser, 2017)

Conversely, the second definition comes from the European Commission. It describes CI as “physical structures of information technology, networks, services and goods that, if subjected to destruction or damage, would have a serious impact on the health, wellbeing, security or economic stability of the citizens, or on the function of the governments of the European Union.” The generic definition is supplemented by the one in Communication 702/2004 with the following more detailed list: a. Energy installations and networks (e.g., electrical power, oil and gas production, storage facilities and refineries, transmission, and distribution system). b. Communications and Information Technology (e.g., telecommunications, broadcasting systems, software, hardware, and networks, including the Internet). c. Finance (e.g., banking, securities, and investment). d. Health Care (e.g., hospitals, health care, blood supply facilities, laboratories, pharmaceuticals, search and rescue, emergency services). e. Food (e.g., safety, production means, wholesale distribution, and food industry). f. Water (e.g., dams, storage, treatment, and networks). g. Transport (e.g., airports, ports, intermodal facilities, railway and mass transit networks, traffic control systems). h. Production, storage, and transport of dangerous goods (e.g., chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear materials). i. Government (e.g., critical services, facilities, information networks, assets, and key national sites and monuments). CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURES AND CYBER SECURITY 57 Regardless of these two definitions, it should be noted that almost every country has its own mode of conceiving CI and that such a large number of perceptions does not facilitate a comparative analysis of strategies or a holistic approach to addressing issues regarding critical infrastructure’s security. (Gaiser, 2017)

The challenge with today’s PSAPs is the heavy reliance on computers, networks, and servers. Currently, when people call 9-1-1 the calls are routed to PSAPs, also known as 9-1-1 Centers, where emergency communications operators (ECOs) answer the calls for help and route first responders to the emergency. A PSAP’s two main technical systems are the phone and computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems. For emergency calls, the Enhanced 9-1-1 (E-9-1-1) phone system allows the ECO to determine the caller’s number and general location using the automatic number identifier (ANI) and the automatic location identification (ALI) display on their telephone console. These systems further provide the ECO the ability to obtain subscriber information of the caller (West Communications, 2020). In addition to the E-9-1-1 system are typically the non-emergency (10-digit administrative) lines used by a local community to relay information on non-emergencies. These non-emergency numbers are published and available to the public. The CAD system allows the ECO to classify the reported incident as a medical or law enforcement call and to assign it as a priority, indicating urgency and dispatch to first responders (Department of Homeland Security, 2011). Both systems are vulnerable to cyber-attacks from internal or external sources, which if successful, could render a PSAP inoperable.       

Elovici (2016) examined the potential threat of attackers exploiting the use of cellular network protocols to launch a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the 9-1-1 system. 2016). Goebel et al. provided an insight into the inner working and vulnerabilities of a modern PSAP using the E-9-1-1 system. They identified a method of attack on PSAPs inside the United States. Their research demonstrated that a Telephony Denial of Service (TDoS) has a significant and disabling effect on a PSAP and reduces the efficacy of providing emergency services to residents. 

The research article 9-1-1 DDoS: Threat, Analysis and Mitigation by Guri Mordechai, Yisroel Mirsky, and Yuval

The purpose of Guri et al.’s research sought answers to the following issues:

1. Identify a new threat to the availability of emergency services: an anonymous, unblockable 911-DDoS attack from mobile phones.
2. In a controlled network, bots could carry out an attack by testing them on a small cellular network to demonstrate the attack’s feasibility and examine the results to provide tools and knowledge to prevent potential attacks in the future.   
3. Evaluate the severity of the attack and analyze the weaknesses of the E-9-1-1 networks by simulating the attack on a reconstruction of existing E-9-1-1 infrastructure (Guri et al., 2016).

The researchers examined the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) rules on emergency calls from cellular or mobile devices. The researchers stated that under a 1996 FCC order, all wireless providers must forward all 9-1-1 calls regardless of validation procedures intended to identify and intercept calls from service providers to non-subscribers (Guri et al., 2016). Essentially, this ruling forced cellular providers to ensure that a mobile device could dial into a 9-1-1 PSAP, even though the device’s owner was not a paying subscriber to a cellular provider. 

Lee and Lim (2016) argued that malware attacks (a malicious programs capable of taking over, damaging, or disabling a host computer) have created an international interest in enacting legislation and preventative measures to protect critical infrastructure. Their case study analysis on the cyber-terror attack aimed to understand the actual cyber threats to critical infrastructure. With this understanding, the authors identified the technological and physical challenges facing governing authorities in protecting critical infrastructure from threats (Lee & Lim, 2016). The study also sought to prove how attackers use cyber threats to disrupt government and private industry. One of the main goals of the case study was to establish a nexus of causality between successful cyber-attacks and authoritative confidence in leads. 

The intended audience of the case study was the global governing and technological community. Lee and Lim argued that cyber-attacks on nuclear power facilities are just one of the pieces of critical infrastructure that have been compromised by cyber-attacks, as television stations and other communications infrastructure have been impacted by the use of malware attacks by hackers (Lee & Lim, 2016). These researchers sought to bring attention that all industries connected to critical infrastructure need to have a plan in place to prevent and mitigate any cyber-attack. The cyber-attack on the HKNP was a socially engineered attack that morphed into a psychological attack on the employees and residents of the Republic of Korea when the hacker’s threats garnered media attention. The government attempted to keep the incident concealed (Lee & Lim, 2016).  

According to Lee and Lim (2016), the hackers were able to infiltrate the HKNP’s computers through multiple versions of malware and phishing emails sent to the company’s employees. They discovered that employees are one of the first lines of defense as it relates to cybersecurity, as the employees of the HKNP opened phishing emails during the preliminary attacks and inadvertently provided passwords and access to the company’s computer system to the hackers (Lee & Lim, 2016). Once the hackers had infiltrated the company’s computer system, they were able to roam freely and steal confidential data. 

Overall, two critical questions were identified by Lee and Lim as they related to the cyber-attack’s prevention and mitigation. The first question examined the importance of separating the company’s internet and intranet connection. If these two systems operated separately, it would have been improbable that employees could have allowed hackers to compromise the company’s network (Lee & Lim, 2016). Secondly, employees’ use of secondary storage devices (USB drives) was not adequately controlled. Lee and Lim (2016) point out critical evidence that these devices were not controlled, and additional malware programs were located on personal drives, ultimately influencing the network’s cybersecurity. 

Additionally, a lack of regulatory efforts by the Republic of Korea allowed a laissez-faire style of leadership at the HKNP, which forced no preventative actions in securing their cyber systems (Lee & Lim, 2016). Lastly, the most significant theme emerging from Lee and Lim’s case study is that there were no clearly assigned governmental rules so that the agencies attacked could respond or assist the HKNP with the attack. Also challenging was the internet’s international nature and the jurisdictional authority of a nation to subpoena and investigate outside of their borders is difficult to complete without international assistance (Lee & Lim, 2016). There were no manuals, training, or other instruction for employees on handling the cyber-attack, which allowed the situation to grow in scope and scale (Lee & Lim, 2016). 

The study noted areas of needed improvement, which included preventative measures. The study revealed the need to develop a cybersecurity best-practice standard that applies to critical infrastructure cyber systems. One of the vital points identified was the need to implement cybersecurity awareness training for all employees and to adopt strong network security policies to reduce the possibility and impact of a cyber-attack (Lee & Lim, 2016). Developing a cybersecurity culture in the workplace creates vigilant employees and seeks new security solutions.

From a national legislative perspective, the researchers identified a need to establish a national policy and cybersecurity (Lee & Lim, 2016). Continuing the policies, Lee and Lim (2016) recommended that legislators modify and evaluate existing laws to be current with technology. Lastly, cybercrime is a global, multijurisdictional challenge. The researchers determined improved cooperation between nations would be beneficial to identifying and stopping cyber-attacks (Lee & Lim, 2016).  

Lee and Lim concluded that there is no simple method to end cyber-attacks. The researchers consider these attacks as an intentional act in violation of international norms. They should be regarded as hostile (Lee & Lim, 2016).  

RESEARCH DESIGN

Research using qualitative content analysis focuses on the characteristics of language as communication with attention to the content or contextual meaning of the text (Budd, Thorp, & Donohew, 1967; Lindkvist, 1981; McTavish & Pirro, 1990; Tesch, 1990). Text data might be in verbal, print, or electronic form, and might have been obtained from narrative responses, open-ended survey questions, interviews, focus groups, observations, or print media such as articles, books, or manuals (Kondracki & Wellman, 2002).

 Qualitative content analysis goes beyond merely counting words to examining language intensely for the purpose of classifying large amounts of text into an efficient number of categories that represent similar meanings (Weber, 1990). These categories can represent either explicit communication or inferred communication. The content analysis aims “to provide knowledge and understanding of the phenomenon under study” (Downe-Wamboldt, 1992, p. 314).

DATA GATHERING

The themes emerged from articles gathered for this paper from academic databases, including ProQuest, JSTOR, Google Scholar, ESCOR, and the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR). Additional material emerged from experts on various social media and blogs, as well as discussions with individuals from major software manufacturers. 

DATA ANALYSIS

The researchers read and familiarized themselves with the data. Each researcher coded the data individually. Subsequent to individual coding, researchers utilized interrater reliability and coded together. First, preliminary codes were assigned to the content. Once researchers agreed on the preliminary codes, they searched different data types for codes, reduced codes accordingly, and raised similar codes to themes. Subsequently, they named the themes below.

Themes

1. Cybercrime is an international issue
2. Disabling the PSAP’s phone systems puts society at risk
3. Infrastructure vulnerabilities will lead to more, not less attacks
4. Employees require more training in cybersecurity
5. Legislation as a deterrent is required 

As indicated by the literature in this research, the nature of cybercrimes is not confined to national borders. The challenge of apprehending these criminals is complex as politics, economics, national security, and public opinion contribute to international lawmaking and addressing the issue (Nukusheva, Zhamiyeva, Shestak, & Rustembekova, 2021). Does the question become when will acts of these criminals rise to a level where the federal government will take purposeful action before the lives of Americans are lost due to a cyber-attack? 

The information in this research indicates that attacks are increasing in severity and frequency. Cybercrime is a threat to PSAPs and national security. Similar to climate change, collectively, as a body of nations, little is being done to avert and thwart the attacks.  

If international efforts prove futile, a Federal Commission should be developed to gather all of the information into one repository where it could be examined, and a national response strategy could be developed.    

The increase of nefarious cyber activity on PSAP computer systems is just as concerning as the TDoS or DoS incidents that are occurring on the emergency and non-emergency phone lines. Further, if a PSAP attack occurs on their phone lines, that does not mean the attack will not occur again. In Levy County, Florida, the PSAP serving the entire county was attacked a second time in six months by persons using a DoS attack on their non-emergency lines. The attack was severe enough to block all calls in and out of the PSAP for hours. On their official website, police in Miami Springs, Florida, announced that they were also a victim of phone hacking and encouraged their residents to call 9-1-1 to reach emergency services.

The information on these attacks and their impact is minimal, as most public organizations do not want to lose public confidence in their emergency communication centers by publicizing these accounts. As with the threat of malware and viruses on the computer systems of the PSAP, more research needs to be performed to understand the impact and implement preventative practices. The National Emergency Number Association (NENA) is one of the leading organizations in the United States that could work with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to take on the task of protecting PSAPs from a DoS threat. 

CONCLUSION

The information presented in the literature provides alarming detail on the current technological threats to public safety answering points. The literature also exposes the vulnerabilities that existing PSAP technology uses to receive incident information and dispatch first responders. There is no doubt that the PSAP plays a critical role in providing emergency services to citizens of the community and is a vital piece of communications infrastructure. This study revealed a lack of quantitative data on the number of cybercrime incidents occurring against PSAPs in the United States. However, qualitative information from various researchers, open media sources and surveyed participants proved the researcher’s hypothesis that cyber incidents against PSAPs are increasing in frequency. There is a need to develop methods to prevent and mitigate the damage. This researcher discovered the use of strong administrative controls, data and voice firewalls, limiting user access, training, and cybersecurity-conscious employees are at the core of preparing and mitigating a cyber-attack on a PSAP.      

 If the PSAP was to be a victim of a cyber-attack involving a DoS attack on the phone system or a ransomware attack on the CAD system, there is irrefutable proof it would cause a decrease in the efficiency of the PSAP. The PSAP is the primary point of contact between the citizen and emergency services. This system improves the likelihood that a patient will receive critical care promptly or that a person who is a victim of a crime will be cared for, and the criminal will be apprehended (Goebel et al., 2019). Any surreptitious actions against the PSAP’s operation should be considered a threat to the public’s safety, and actions should be taken to hold cybercriminals accountable. 

FUTURE RESEARCH

There is a lack of quantitative research regarding the occurrence of cyber-attacks on PSAPs. This researcher found it very difficult to locate any research reports or statistics indicating the actual occurrence of attacks on PSAPS. While the existence of qualitative material was discovered, future research should be conducted to understand the frequency and methodology of the attacks. Additionally, a comparative study should be performed on PSAPs that implement preventative systems, policies, or mechanical hardware identified in this study to determine if these methods are effective at reducing the impact of a cyber-attack. The information discovered from future research may lead to policy development and standardizing best practices.

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