Approaching midnight on a seemingly normal Friday night in Dallas, Texas, when the city’s emergency sirens start to sound. Too early for tornado season, the confused citizens begin to panic, many jump to horrifying conclusions after a week of news that included North Korean missile testing and use of chemical weapons in Syria. Living in this climate of fear, the city’s residents overwhelm the 911 emergency response phone line. There was no terror attack however, no extreme weather, no dangerous emergency at all. At 11:40pm on April 7th, two weeks ago, hackers took control of all 156 emergency sirens in the north Texas city. Taken by surprise, city officials had to first confirm there was no real emergency but even then they were unable to turn off the system. The continuous nature of the cyber-attack meant that the sirens were only shut down after one hour and forty minutes of noisy confusion, raising important questions […]