Challenge
Palm Beach County was hit by Telephony Denial of Service (TDoS) attacks on their administrative and critical emergency service phone lines. The malicious calls overwhelmed their administrative phone lines and shut down the county's PSAPs or public-safety answering points (PSAPs). The TDoS attack crippled Palm Beach County's PSAP call centers receiving emergency calls for police, fire brigade, or ambulance service.
Background
Palm Beach County is located in the southeastern part of Florida just north of Broward and Miami-Dade Counties. Palm Beach County has almost 1.5 million residents, making it the third-most populous county in the state of Florida and the 25th-most populous county in the United States.
Palm Beach County is also home to Mar-a-Lago, home of former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Approach
SecureLogix deployed its solution quickly after the attacks started. The SecureLogix® Call Defense™ System and Call Secure™ Managed Services detected the TDoS attacks came from a Palestinian group calling from Gaza.
The attackers made no ransom demands but continued to flood Palm Beach County phone numbers with calls, crippling PSAP operations over the weekend. Once deployed, SecureLogix immediately began blocking the calls from the Palestinian group and restored PSAP services.
Result
The malicious group has attempted other TDoS attacks since SecureLogix's solution was deployed. The county is now protected against these attacks, even if the actors change phone numbers.
SecureLogix constantly updates its tools with the most current intelligence on emerging attacks to detect new threat vectors. After a nearby county was also targeted by the same actors, Palm Beach County plans to expand its use of the SecureLogix solution to all regional locations across its organization.
Solution
- Call Defense System
- Call Secure Managed Service
