![]() Some of them have no dedicated security staff at all. And in a lot of cases, all of them have a very small IT staff. “I deal with a lot of municipal water utilities for small, medium and large-sized cities. ![]() We have known for a long time that municipal water utilities are extremely under-funded and under-resourced, and that makes them a soft target for cyber attacks. It’s not like the water treatment plant was even using that software, by the way: Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said the plant had actually stopped using TeamViewer six months ago. The Associated Press quoted Lesley Carhart, the principal incident responder at Dragos, a security firm that specialises in dealing with the security of industrial control systems, as saying: "In the industry, we were all expecting this to happen. Like I think a lot of people were surprised the Oldsmar facility uses programs to let others remote in, but this should give you a sense of how big its staff is. The Florida Water Plant Hack The attack on the Oldsmar water-treatment facility in Florida occurred last Friday, when an attacker used remote access to the system to change the level of. the biggest hurdle to cryptocurrency adoption, without which itll be relegated to the Paypal-announced use of it: youll be able to send it between two registered and proven Paypal users, and thats it. "The unidentified actors accessed the water treatment plant’s SCADA controls via remote access software, TeamViewer, which was installed on one of several computers the water treatment plant personnel used to conduct system status checks and to respond to alarms or any other issues that arose during the water treatment process," the advisory said. Breached Water Plant Employees Used the Same TeamViewer Password and No Firewall. The Massachusetts advisory said the attackers had accessed the plant twice, about five hours apart and were able to operate the supervisory control and data acquisition system used by the plant. Nothing wrong with using Yahoo! for SSO (though is MFA comes by rotary phone?), but there area some notable SSO providers missing there if you're doing SSO.Īlso, in January they're still displaying the office hours for the July 4th holiday. Gualtieri said on the second occasion, the attacker was in the system for about five minutes and changed the sodium hydroxide concentration from 100 parts per million to 11,100ppm. Rather, the point of this post is to highlight SCADA security best practices so that access to sensitive data and remote control functionality remain under lock and key.The breach was made public on Monday by county sheriff Bob Gualtieri who said a water treatment plant in Oldsmar, a city in Pinellas County, Florida, had been breached twice on 5 February and that an operator noticed at about 8am that day that there was an intruder in the computer system he was monitoring. Many treatment plants are underfunded, which can make it difficult to audit and implement appropriate security measures. However, the point of this post isn’t to throw this particular plant under the bus. Following the attack on a water treatment plant in Oldsmar, Florida, the FBI is warning users to stay vigilant about outdated Windows 7 OS and TeamViewer. It’s understandable if that makes you cringe a little bit. A water treatment plant in Oldsmar, Fla., was breached via an 'unlawful intrusion' on Friday, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said in a press. For context, TeamViewer is a software program that gives third-party users remote access and control of a computer system. An unknown threat actor used TeamViewer with the intent of poisoning a Florida city's water supply last week, but officials said the attempted cyber attack was stopped before it could be completed. ![]() The treatment plant was using an unsupported version of Windows with no firewall and was sharing a single TeamViewer password among all of its team members. The most concerning part about this story is how it could’ve been avoided by implementing some basic cybersecurity measures. This is a sobering story that highlights the importance of protecting our utility systems from being breached by those with malicious intentions. Many who work in our industry are already aware of the Florida treatment plant that was easily hacked last month and became part of a botched attempt to tamper with the city’s water supply. ![]() This is particularly true in industries that provide essential services to municipalities. Data-and access to data-is highly sensitive and needs to be protected at all times. After an investigation of the Oldsmar incident, it was revealed that the hacker was able to gain access because the computer system was using an unsupported. The consequences for failing to do so are just too great. In the age of global connectivity, it is more important than ever for governments, businesses, and individuals to adhere to strict cybersecurity standards. To gain access to the water treatment plant in Oldsmar, Florida, the unknown hacker exploited a program called TeamViewer, which companies and governments can install on a PC to remotely view.
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