(WJAR) — The CodeRED emergency alert system is down following a cyber breach.
But Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency says it won’t impact their job to share critical information in case of an emergency.
CodeRED is a private system used by cities and states nationwide.
In Rhode Island, the state and every municipality had it as one way to get out information.
Account holders are now being urged to change their passwords.
The CodeRED emergency alert system is down following a cyber breach.
“It’s the world we live in now,” RIEMA Director Marc Pappas said. “Whenever there’s a hack and a cyber incident, we just tell people to change their passwords.”
Data from users signed up to receive alerts was stolen – including names, home and email addresses, phone numbers, and passwords.
When NBC 10 News asked if this has impacted the state’s ability to send out alerts, Pappas said, “Yes and no. We are still able, 100% able to send out alert warning messages to the public, and we do that through the national IPAW system.”
That’s the public alert and warning system – run by the federal government that comes through on your phone without any account or sign up.
“While it’s concerning that one of our vendors was hacked and we can’t use it, we never lost the ability to be able to alert and warn the public if a disaster or an emergency were to happen,” he said.
Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency. (WJAR)
So what’s the point of also having CodeRED?
“We can tailor Code Red messages for locals to do. You know, the garbage pickup is delayed a day, right? So, but in times of a serious emergency, we could use that bigger IPAW system to message with the federal government. And for us, it’s redundant, and we do everything with backup systems,” Pappas said.
While hackers were able to get access to account information NBC 10 News was told they never had the ability to send out an alert of their own because that process requires multi-factor authentication.
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The key takeaway is if you signed up for a CodeRED account, go change your passwords, especially if you tend to use the same password on multiple platforms.
