U.S. security officials are worried because the water authority of a small town in Pennsylvania was hacked.
The Pennsylvania Aliquippa Water Authority was one of the last places people thought would be hacked. Since they’ve been open for years, something like this has never happened. But recent events have made people worry about it. U.S. security leaders are working hard to think of a way to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
Authorities say that hackers with ties to Iran went after and hacked a piece of equipment in Pennsylvania. People say it was hit because it was made in Israel.
The Iranian hackers turned off a device that controls and monitors the water pressure in a pumping station and can be managed from a distance. They were able to quickly switch to doing things by hand, which didn’t bother customers. For this reason, it’s important to keep in mind that not all businesses can save it by hand in case something like this happens.
This makes people worried because they don’t know what else they might be able to hack into, like water tanks or cleaning systems. Authorities in Pennsylvania are more concerned with things like making sure people have clean water to drink and fixing old pipes than with cybersecurity.
There is a problem in the U.S. that needs to be fixed, but energy companies say that cybersecurity is too expensive for them to invest in because they already do so many other things.
Robert Lee, CEO of Draco’s, a business that helps industrial companies with cybersecurity, said that an awful lot of utility companies don’t have any.
“That story is about tens of thousands of utilities across the country,” he said.
Because Congress is supporting bills that deal with this issue, the problem of hacking in places like power plants and utility companies should be fixed.
