On the first week of February 2021, A city water plant in the small town of Oldsmar, FL was hacked. The hackers remotely accessed the the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system and changed the sodium hydroxide (lye) level in the water to more than 100 times the normal amount. Thankfully, an engineer quickly noticed the abnormal levels and fixed the issue. This begs the question, how could thousands of people be so close to being poisoned so easily? The computers in the facility had a program called TeamViewer installed on them. TeamViewer allows for remote access of computers by authorized individuals, in the water plants case, engineers that need to remotely monitor the water plant. Preliminary investigation by researchers suggests that old credentials to an administrative account at the water plant were compromised. What happened at Oldsmar is a wake up call. The attack was minorly sophisticated and could have had extreme real world consequences, a more advanced advisory could have made the consequences reality.
Sources:
https://threatpost.com/florida-water-plant-hack-credentials-breach/163919/
https://www.tampabay.com/news/pinellas/2021/02/08/someone-tried-to-poison-oldsmars-water-supply-during-hack-sheriff-says/
https://www.securityinfowatch.com/critical-infrastructure/article/21209487/catastrophe-narrowly-averted-in-florida-water-plant-hack
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