Buncombe County launches Rave emergency alerts after CodeRED cyberattack

Buncombe County has moved its emergency-notification service from a CodeRED-based system to the Rave platform after a cyberattack affected its previous vendor, county officials said. The change is intended to restore and improve the county’s ability to send timely emergency alerts and public safety messages to residents across Asheville and the broader county.

County officials said the transition included a data update that transferred contacts registered with BCAlerts into the new Rave system using information from the prior provider. During that process, “an automated notification may have been sent to duplicate entries in the old database,” which resulted in some residents receiving the same message more than once or receiving a message with an incorrect contact name. A Feb. 5 county news release, cited by local outlets, “wanted to assure the community that the message is from a legitimate provider.”

More specific language from the county’s release, reported by local television, described the incident as a “targeted cyberattack in a third-party vendor's system,' CodeRED, which the county paid to run Buncombe's alert notification system, BCAlerts.” County officials emphasized the alerts were authorized and that the unexpected duplications stemmed from the transfer process rather than from fraudulent messaging.

Officials say they are reviewing the transferred contact data to remove duplicate entries and to ensure alerts are delivered accurately going forward. In January, while BCAlerts was impacted, the county advised residents to sign up for Asheville’s AVL Alert so the county could continue to share time-sensitive information; local reporting noted that step served as a temporary bridge during the disruption.

For residents, the immediate impacts were largely technical and informational rather than operationally crippling. Some households received multiple copies of the same alert or saw incorrect names tied to messages, which caused confusion but did not change the official provenance of the warnings. County leaders have said additional information about the Rave system and instructions for signing up will be posted on the county’s official website and shared through authorized communication channels soon.

The episode underscores how local emergency communications depend on third-party vendors and the challenges of moving large registration databases without producing unintended side effects. Buncombe County’s data-review effort and the switch to Rave aim to restore confidence and reliability in local alerts. Residents should watch official county channels for signup guidance and expect the county to follow up as it cleans the transferred contact list and finalizes Rave onboarding.