Sarnia's Emergency Planner says there's no need for concern about the vulnerability of the area's emergency alert siren system.
Researchers found the siren system in San Francisco and other cities could be susceptible to hackers who could then sound false alarms or block legitimate warnings.
Cal Gardner contacted Boston-based ATI, the supplier of the local system.
"They said there was confusion among the public because they were talking about different systems," says Gardner. "ATI went to encryption over 30 years ago and we do have some encryption with our system. But they also said it was 15 years old and we may want to look at updating our software, but we are already in the process of doing that."
Gardner says Sarnia's emergency management program has budgeted $15,000 to upgrade its software and the system is always changing its code system.