this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2026
467 points (99.4% liked)

Technology

87598 readers
3739 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
467
CISA Releases Guidance Urging Water Treatment Facilities to Disconnect Equipment From the Internet (www.privacyguides.org)
submitted 3 weeks ago by new_otters_raft@piefed.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world
68 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

CISA released an urgent message warning water utilities to disconnect their logic controllers from the internet in the face of rising cyberattacks.

The hacks target internet-facing programmable logic controllers (PLCs) that control equipment and allow machinery to communicate. They monitor and control the water pressure, chemical dosing, and other factors to ensure the water is safe.

Many of the PLCs are apparently open to the internet and use default credentials, allowing a remote attacker to easily take them over.

I assume it is this CISA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersecurity_and_Infrastructure_Security_Agency

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] fubarx@lemmy.world 20 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Went on the public tour of our local waste-treatment facility. Really fascinating stuff. Highly recommend it if you're even slightly curious.

There are definitely industrial-scale automation systems. Mostly PLCs, but also SCADA for monitoring. Lots of 20-30 year-old tech. Those networks have no reason to be connected to the internet.

But there were also office equipment and personal devices everywhere. All it takes is for someone wanting to monitor the state of a digester on their laptop from home.

You just crossed the beams.

[โ€“] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

definitely industrial-scale automation systems. Mostly PLCs, but also SCADA for monitoring. Lots of 20-30 year-old tech. Those networks have no reason to be connected to the internet.

You're talking a massive nation with more systems like this than you could ever imagine. Probably more than all of Europe combined.

They are in every state of repair and disrepair that you could imagine, and many have been receiving government funding for at least at decade now (def more, but I can only speak to the last ten years or so) to replace these systems, including SCADA and PLCs.

So you have a patchwork of countless systems, in every level of tech modernity that you can imagine.

The newer systems usually have an internal network of sorts, and they might have a portal for someone outside the network to log in to remotely monitor.

The problem seems to be that these idiots kept the default credentials, etc.

But to answer you're question, they're not all 20-30 years old, and network connectivity (without being open to the outside internet, obviously), is a very useful feature when replacing those old systems with newer ones.

That's why.

load more comments (2 replies)