Biden Administration Announces Plan To Stop Water Plant Hacks

The Biden administration announced on Friday a new plan to improve the digital defenses of public water systems. From a report: The move comes one day after the announcement of a national cybersecurity strategy by the White House, which seeks to broadly improve industry accountability over the cybersecurity of American critical infrastructure, such as hospitals and dams. The water system plan, which recommends a series of novel rules placing more responsibility for securing water facilities at the state-level, follows several high-profile hacking incidents in recent years.

In February 2021, a cyberattack on a water treatment plant in Florida briefly increased lye levels in the water, an incident that could have been deadly if an alert worker had not detected the hack quickly. And in March 2019, a terminated employee at a Kansas-based water facility used his old computer credentials to remotely take systems offline, according to an administration official. The government is acting now because of the urgency of the threat, according to a senior U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official. Radhika Fox, the assistant administrator in the EPA's Office of Water, said hackers had 'shut down critical treatment processes' and 'locked control system networks behind ransomware,' underscoring the current danger. However, some experts say the new plan will not do enough to help make systems more secure.

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