Community Chat

[millieshops]

OP’s post tells us a Florida community was hacked.  The hacker could be from anywhere.

eta:  just read 2 different accounts about this incident.  Neither indicated any agency knows for sure whether the hacker was from the US even let alone from Florida.

They do know the hacker was caught when (he ?) signed in a second time.   Interesting to me also was that only one report included a description of the fail safe that would have happened automatically if that supervisor had not been on the ball.  Hopefully that’s accurate and no one would have been poisoned even if he had been asleep at the switch.

[Porcelain]

Domestic or international terrorism, depending on where it originated. Serious serious stuff.

They tried to poison the water supply with lye.

[Lipstickdiva]

When I saw this story on GMA this morning they had leads but no suspect and didn't even know where the hacker originated.

I've heard the reference to the SB multiple times on news outlets but that  seems odd to me. Why would they do it in that small town instead of Tampa where the SB took place?

It was also mentioned that yes there are other precautions in place that would have prevented this from happening, it just so happens that a person noticed it. But had he not, there are other safeguards.      

[Puppy Lips]

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@SharkE wrote:

Will there be a Spring break this yr. ? Where all the wild college kids invade?   They cancel that last yr. ?  I can't remember .

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Our son goes to college in Florida.  They have no spring break this year - they go right through until the semester is over.  Not sure about all the schools, but his definitely canceled it.

[Puppy Lips]

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@SharkE wrote:

No Florida living for me. When we retired wasn't even in the top 10 and now it's being flooded with folks. We made right decision.

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@SharkE People are coming here because it is a great place to live.  But we are all looking for different things when we retire.

[furbabylover]

@Mindy D  I live in Florida and what we are hearing here is that law enforcement is focusing on an Iranian Cyber group that has been caught masquerading as an American Patriot group. 

[Mindy D]

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@furbabylover wrote:

@Mindy D  I live in Florida and what we are hearing here is that law enforcement is focusing on an Iranian Cyber group that has been caught masquerading as an American Patriot group. 

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@furbabylover @you could be right.

@Iranian hackers did attack the New York dam and an Israeli water treatment facility. 

This is a quote from Security Week online about this:

"group of Iranian hackers recently posted a video showing how they managed to access an industrial control system (ICS) at a water facility in Israel.

According to industrial cybersecurity firm OTORIO, the hackers accessed a human-machine interface (HMI) system that was directly connected to the internet without any authentication or other type of protection. The target was apparently a reclaimed water reservoir."

“This gave the attackers easy access to the system and the ability to modify any value in the system, allowing them, for example, to tamper with the water pressure, change the temperature and more. All the adversaries needed was a connection to the world-wide-web, and a web browser,” OTORIO said in a blog post."

FOX News online has an article about this fpgroup with this headline, although the article does not mention the water facility hacking.

"Iranian cyber groups continue to masquerade as American ‘patriot’ organizations that threaten US: officials"

@furbabylover Thanks for the tip. I'll be looking for more about this.

[RoughDraft]

This is not the first hack on facilities in the U.S.  Even the small plant in FL's backups are computer controlled and  could be tampered with.

It was mentioned that one was tried on a small dam in upper NY state.  Consider that whatever player/s are testing the waters on smaller facilities is to see whether they  can be detected.  Then consider large dams, rail lines, bridges and water processing plants all over the country.

[sceniccoast]

a bit off topic .. but this whole hacking thing seems to have become a part of our everyday language.

Wishful thinking .. going back to the good 'ol days .. getting rid of technology would help a lot in stopping this.  

.. I know, there're pros/cons to everything.

[gardenman]

A big part of the problem is you have people connecting systems to the Internet that don't need to be connected to the Internet. The systems cant be hacked if they can't be accessed.