InternetFEMA Gets a Lesson in Security

Phone hackers exploit a vulnerability caused by a contractor to make free phone calls.

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is scrambling to find out how hackers got into the voice mail system at its training center in Emmitsburg, Md., over the weekend and placed $12,000 worth of calls to the Middle East and Asia. The attackers got in through a vulnerability in the Private Branch Exchange (PBX) (define) installed by FEMA's contractor during a recent phone system upgrade. They made calls to several countries, including Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and India. "We were alerted by our telecommunications contractor, Sprint, on Saturday the 15th of August of a problem at our training center, so we immediately blocked the capability for all international calls and monitored long-distance calls," FEMA spokesperson Debbie Wing told InternetNews.com. Sprint (NYSE: S) spokesperson Matt Sullivan told InternetNews.com that the company did not own the PBX. "If there was a breach, there was no breach of our network," he added. RELATED ARTICLES Skype, Xandros Bundle VoIP, Linux For more stories on this topic: According to Wing, preliminary evidence "points to the conclusion that there was a contractor error on the work with the line." She added that FEMA "immediately corrected it and is taking all steps to ensure this doesn't recur." Wing could not name the contractor but confirmed the attackers breached a PBX. However, she could not say whether the equipment was a standard PBX or one using... [ Read more on www.internetnews.com ]

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