The Sonoma County Department of Emergency Management notified community members that a cybersecurity incident affected CodeRED, the third-party vendor platform that previously powered the County’s SoCoAlert emergency notification system. According to the notice, this was a nationwide incident that impacted the vendor’s own systems, not the County’s networks, and it resulted in a third-party vendor breach rather than any direct compromise of Sonoma County infrastructure. The County has since learned that the password used by community members to log into their online CodeRED accounts may have been compromised.
This notice is directed at people who created a SoCoAlert account through CodeRED to receive local emergency alerts and warnings. The letter does not state how many people were affected overall, so it’s not possible to say how large this incident was beyond the community members who used this specific alert account.
What information was exposed?
- CodeRED account password
The County states that CodeRED has already reset the affected passwords as a precaution, and no separate credit monitoring or identity protection service is mentioned in this notice.
What should you do now?
- If you had a SoCoAlert account through CodeRED, log in with the new password CodeRED assigned and set a fresh, unique password for that account going forward.
- Change that same password anywhere else you may have reused it, since attackers often try leaked passwords across other email, banking, or shopping accounts.
- Turn on two-factor authentication for any account where it’s offered, especially email, so a password alone isn’t enough to get in.
- Watch for phishing emails or texts pretending to be from CodeRED, the County, or other services asking you to ‘verify’ your password or account details.
- Since password exposures like this can be a precursor to broader identity misuse, it’s worth signing up for a service like Aura or LifeLock, which can alert you if your information appears elsewhere online.
- If you’re unsure whether other accounts share this password, a password manager can help you check for and fix reused credentials quickly.
If you have questions about this incident, CodeRED can be reached at [email protected] or by phone at 1-866-939-0911.