Security News > 2021 > February > Poor Password Security Led to Recent Water Treatment Facility Hack
New details have emerged about the remote computer intrusion at a Florida water treatment facility last Friday, highlighting a lack of adequate security measures needed to bulletproof critical infrastructure environments.
The breach involved an unsuccessful attempt on the part of an adversary to increase sodium hydroxide dosage in the water supply to dangerous levels by remotely accessing the SCADA system at the water treatment plant.
Now, according to an advisory published on Wednesday by the state of Massachusetts, unidentified cyber actors accessed the supervisory control and data acquisition system via TeamViewer software installed on one of the plant's several computers that were connected to the control system.
Not only were these computers running 32-bit versions of the Windows 7 operating system, but the machines also shared the same password for remote access and are said to have been exposed directly to the Internet without any firewall protection installed.
"Keep computers, devices, and applications, including SCADA/industrial control systems software, patched and up-to-date," the alert cautioned, adding "Use two-factor authentication with strong passwords."
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, in a separate alert published today, warned of "Cybercriminals targeting and exploiting desktop sharing software and computer networks running operating systems with end of life status to gain unauthorized access to systems."