Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency’s alert system down after cybersecurity incident

(WJAR) — Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency said its CodeRED notification system is down after a national cybersecurity incident.

According to officials, the OnSolve CodeRED emergency notification platform was involved in a cybersecurity incident recently.

The platform, which is provided by the vendor Crisis24, remains unavailable.

“Because RIEMA utilizes additional alert and warning systems beyond CodeRED, at no time during this incident did the state lose the capability to alert and warn the public,” RIEMA said in a statement.

RIEMA said CodeRED alert system can store the name, address, email addresses, phone numbers and passwords of users that signed up to receive the alerts.

The company told NBC 10 News’ sister station in Seattle, “We confirm that data potentially associated with the legacy OnSolve CodeRED platform has been published online following a targeted attack by an organized cybercriminal group. The attack also resulted in damage to the OnSolve CodeRED environment.”

Agency officials said state and local communities will use additional messaging platforms to issue emergency alerts.

CodeRED advised users to update their passwords if they’ve reused the same one on other accounts.

“The vendor is working to expedite the migration of users to their new CodeRED product, which has undergone enhanced security hardening,” RIEMA said in a statement.