Florida hack highlights security shortages in US water sector
A hack that apparently affected a Florida water facility’s chemical setting is emblematic of a water sector that’s short on money, cybersecurity personnel and often reliant on the practices of vendors, experts say. The Feb. 5 incident in Oldsmar, a Florida town of 15,000 people, involved a still-unidentified hacker infiltrating the local water treatment facility’s computer system and trying to increase the amount of sodium hydroxide to a potentially dangerous level, local authorities said. The substance is used in the water purification process but can be toxic at higher levels. No harm was done to public health — the facility had safety checks in place — but the level of access obtained by the attacker has prompted calls for tighter security in the sector. The breach is an uncomfortable reminder that water facilities struggle to invest as much money in effective security as other industrial organizations, even as they face “an […]
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