Andrew Hildick-Smith

February 10, 2021

What’s most interesting about the Florida water system hack? That we heard about it at all.

This post was originally published on this siteStories about computer security tend to go viral when they bridge the vast divide between geeks and luddites, and this week’s news about a hacker who tried to poison a Florida town’s water supply was understandably front-page material. But for security nerds who’ve been warning about this sort of thing for ages, the most surprising aspect of the incident seems to be that we learned about it at all. Spend a few minutes searching Twitter, Reddit or any number of other social media sites and you’ll find countless examples of researchers posting proof […]
June 21, 2021

How Cyber Safe is Your Drinking Water Supply?

This post was originally published on this siteAmid multiple recent reports of hackers breaking into and tampering with drinking water treatment systems comes a new industry survey with some sobering findings: A majority of the 52,000 separate drinking water systems in the United States still haven’t inventoried some or any of their information technology systems — a basic first step in protecting networks from cyberattacks. The Water Information Sharing and Analysis Center (WaterISAC) — an industry group that tries to facilitate information sharing and the adoption of best practices among utilities in the water sector — surveyed roughly 600 employees […]