The U.S. is implementing new laws meant to protect water systems from hackers.
The decision comes as water resource management facilities in the country were cyberattacked on multiple occasions.
- The new legislation requires state governments to audit the cybersecurity practices of public water systems.
- This
decision was made due to the fact that many facilities have allegedly
failed to take basic security steps to protect themselves and their
clients.
- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency led this decision.
- The U.S. water sector includes more than 148,000 public water systems.
- Only
weeks into the Biden administration, in February 2021, a hacker
infiltrated a Florida water treatment facility and tried to increase the
amount of sodium hydroxide to a potentially dangerous level.
- An employee at the plant realized what was going on and manually stopped the system before it sent out contaminated water.
- The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have warned about multiple ransomware attacks on the computer networks of water and wastewater facilities from California to Maine.
