water system hacker

[Ausmumof3]

Did you guys read about the guy that hacked into the water system and tried to increase the sodium hydroxide levels?  How risky is this kind of thing?  How likely that someone could pull something like that off without getting detected?

[Terabith]

51 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Did you guys read about the guy that hacked into the water system and tried to increase the sodium hydroxide levels?  How risky is this kind of thing?  How likely that someone could pull something like that off without getting detected?

Well, given the reality of American infrastructure, it's not all that implausible that harm could be done.  My husband pointed out that the fact that the hacker immediately jacked up the levels so dramatically virtually insured that it would get noticed and caught.  His hypothesis is that the hacker is a white hat hacker who may have previously raised concerns about security protocols.  I'm not sure how likely that is, given the inevitable severe consequences, but I'm hoping he's right.  

[Farrar]

It sounded like it probably would have been caught and no one would have been harmed. If the hacker hadn't been seen in the act and had successfully changed the levels in the water, apparently it would have taken at least 24 hours for that water to get to homes and before that point, there were multiple sensors, some of which, as I understood it, are checked by humans and not fully automated. So it could have been a massive, expensive issue if they hadn't seen the hacker right away in the act. But also, it probably wouldn't have killed anyone... at least at this particular water system.

It's definitely a huge danger though. I don't know what the total danger is though. Like, it sounds like it's a real issue, but I don't have a sense of how common it is. One article I read about it suggested that it's apparently something that may happen more often than we realize because the authorities don't always reveal that it happened after they foil it.

[Alte Veste Academy]

I saw this discussed on Rachel Maddow during a conversation she had with Nicole Perlroth, the author of This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race. Scary stuff. Apparently we've automated so many things in the name of ease and efficiency and we've arrogantly believed we're cyber-superior that we are now extremely at risk of cyber-terrorism.