Here’s a heads-up for users of Digital Alert Systems EAS/CAP devices in the United States.
The manufacturer has released a free but necessary update to the Federal Emergency Management Agency digital certificates that your devices use to authenticate messaging from the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, or IPAWS.
DAS has released free updated IPAWS Certificate Authority credentials for DASDEC and One-Net series encoder/decoders. The current certification chain expires on April 14.
“The new certificate is fully functional right now, so customers are advised to replace the existing certificate to ensure the required message authentication continues to operate correctly,” it said in the announcement.
“Digital Alert Systems reminds all EAS participants that the FCC requires them to ‘configure their systems to reject all CAP-formatted EAS messages that include an invalid digital signature.’”
Senior Sales Engineer Adam Jones was quoted saying, “We appreciate FEMA getting these out so quickly, and our customers will be pleased to know this new certificate is good until March of 2031.”
The new certificates will also be packaged with the pending DASDEC V5.3 release. Customers planning to update to that version can wait and get their certificates then if they prefer, as long as they do so before April 14.
The company emphasized that DASDEC and One-Net customers using the IPAWS system must have the latest certificates in place so that the devices only process messages authenticated through IPAWS.
“Users not updating their equipment before April 14 could see this error message: ‘Event Log: Digital Signature VERIFICATION ERROR: Signer UNTRUSTED! Check for correct CAP decoder CA file.’ Alternatively, the device might simply ignore valid IPAWS alerts.”
The field service bulletin and CA file are available from the DAS website. “DASDEC and One-Net customers should go to the website, download the field service bulletin for instructions, and link to the new CA file.”
