How America's 911 emergency response system can be hacked

Washington

A GROUP of researchers say they've found a way to effectively disable the 911 emergency system across an entire state for an extended period of time by simply launching what's known as a TDoS attack, or telephony denial-of-service attack, against 911 call centres.

The tactic involves infecting mobile phones to cause them to automatically make bogus 911 calls - without their owners' knowledge - thereby clogging call-centre queues and preventing legitimate callers from reaching operators.

The researchers say it would take just 6,000 infected smartphones in a geographical area - something hackers could easily accomplish - to launch an attack…