Hackers breached U.S. Water Infrastructure

Lately cyber attacks becoming more frequent. This time, a cyber attack which sent from outside the United States (U.S.), attacked the public water system in the Midwestern, Illinois. Through the attack, the perpetrators managed to take over control of the water system.

As reported by Terra, Sunday (11/20/2011), Joseph Weiss, managging partner to Applied Control Solutions, said, "It could be said the first case of hacking from outside the U.S. that attack a critical infrastructure."

"That's what makes this a big problem," he added. "They can do anything because it has access to the main station."

This attack reportedly came from a computer in Russia, and slipped from the account password using a U.S. company software maker Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) previously hacked.

Just to note, there are more than a dozen companies that use SCADA software. This software is used worldwide to control machines in a wide range of industrial facilities, such as manufacturing plants, oil drilling, water disposal systems, to nuclear power.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security now has not found any malicious threats related to these cases, but they are still conducting further investigation.
by;okezone