Security News > 2021 > February > Hacker Tries to Poison Water Supply of Florida Town

A threat actor hacked into the computer system of the water treatment facility in Oldsmar, Fla., and tried to poison the town's water supply by raising the levels of sodium hydroxide, or lye, in the water supply.

Someone remotely accessed the computer system the operator was monitoring that controls chemical levels in the water as well as other operations, he said.

Around 1:30 p.m. someone again remotely accessed the computer system and the operator observed the mouse moving around on the screen to access various systems that control the water being treated, he said.

"It is used to control water acidity and remove metals from drinking water in water-treatment plants."

Even if the operator hadn't so quickly noticed the nefarious activity, he said it would have taken 24 to 36 hours for the tainted water to hit the water supply, and redundancies in the system would have tested it before then and caught the high levels of sodium hydroxide.

Given past attacks on the U.S. critical infrastructure such as the power grid, water systems and nuclear plants, organizations in control of these systems should take the latest attack in Florida as a call to action, observed Hitesh Sheth, president and CEO at Vectra, a San Jose, Calif.-based provider of AI for detecting cyberattacks, in an e-mail to Threatpost.

News URL

https://threatpost.com/hacker-tries-to-poison-water-supply-of-florida-town/163761/