11 comments

  • firefax37 minutes ago
    Wasn&#x27;t there a Defcon or Derby talk about this years back? (The insecurity, not the Persian angle)<p>Struggling for a source.<p>Guy had the energy of that one Simcity 2000 character who bugs out if you cut back on funding that you&#x27;ll regret it. Early twenty aughts IIRC?
    • bradly26 minutes ago
      Not sure about defcon, but Buckminster Fuller wrote waay back in the sixties about the New York&#x27;s vulnerability to a fresh water supply attack.<p>If you haven&#x27;t read it Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth is one of my favorite books.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;details&#x2F;operatingmanualforspaceshipearthbuckminsterfuller1969&#x2F;page&#x2F;n39&#x2F;mode&#x2F;2up" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;details&#x2F;operatingmanualforspaceshipearth...</a>
  • cineticdaffodil32 minutes ago
    I think this landscape is littered with simulated systems as honeypot. Once you have it a normal adversary would stop searching, besides regular checks that the gun still works.
  • BoardsOfCanada54 minutes ago
    <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;fa2Xj" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;fa2Xj</a>
  • krautburglar28 minutes ago
    They always point to a state actor to skirt liability for their own shitty IT work. Then the dim evil journalists swallow it whole, later regurgitating it for their eager little baby bird subscribers.<p>If there were actual penalties for rawdogging a PLC (or any other control system) on the internet, shit like this wouldn’t happen.
    • dylan60422 minutes ago
      &lt;adjustsTinFoilHat&gt; The Trump plan in Iran is not working. Gotta make them look like the evil bogeyman to get people to support further action.
      • krautburglar18 minutes ago
        Iran is beside the point. There is always a convenient bogeyman: China, Russia, North Korea… They sow discord between peoples to cover-up the ineptitude of domestic institutional assholes.
        • garciasn6 minutes ago
          Blacks.<p>Homosexuals.<p>Communists.<p>Islamics.<p>Hispanics.<p>Liberals.<p>Intellectuals.<p>There’s always an other. That’s what the Republicans have been doing for decades.
      • Aurornis17 minutes ago
        This conspiracy theory would make more sense if he wasn’t working so hard to divert blame away from Iran: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.politico.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2026&#x2F;07&#x2F;31&#x2F;trump-minnesota-water-hacks-iran-01021161" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.politico.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2026&#x2F;07&#x2F;31&#x2F;trump-minnesota-wat...</a><p>&gt; “I blame it on Minnesota because they are grossly incompetent,” Trump said at a cabinet meeting at Camp David on Friday, adding that Walz is “corrupt” and “Iran has bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota.” Asked later if he could rule out Iranian responsibility, Trump said, “ I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack. I think Minnesota ought to get its act together.”
        • garciasn5 minutes ago
          As if it were only Minnesota. But his base doesn’t pay attention to details.
  • lysace1 hour ago
    <i>The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are issuing this Public Service Announcement (PSA) to warn critical infrastructure asset owners and operators that malicious cyber actors (MCAs) are conducting cyber attacks targeting Operational Technology (OT) devices, including Rockwell Automation&#x2F;Allen-Bradley Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), specifically MicroLogix 1100 and 1400 series. Since 27 July 2026, Water and Wastewater Sector (WWS) utility companies in at least seven states have reported incidents to the FBI, and some of that activity degraded water operations. While the FBI has only observed this behavior with the referenced Rockwell PLCs, similar considerations should also be made with other branded PLCs.</i><p><i>After remotely accessing internet-facing devices, the actors changed the IP addresses and passwords, resulting in a loss of monitoring and control functionality. To reduce the risk of compromise, the FBI and EPA recommend removing PLCs from direct internet exposure via secure gateway and firewalls, setting up strong, unique passwords, and utilizing an access control list (ACL) to allow only authorized communication between expected control system devices.</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fbi.gov&#x2F;investigate&#x2F;cyber&#x2F;alerts&#x2F;2026&#x2F;malicious-cyber-actors-targeting-water-and-wastewater-sector-internet--facing-programmable-logic-controllers-causing-operational-disruptions" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fbi.gov&#x2F;investigate&#x2F;cyber&#x2F;alerts&#x2F;2026&#x2F;malicious-...</a>
    • radicality29 minutes ago
      Did they literally just leave the water supply plant management software out available on the open internet? Hard to even call this a hack!
      • hubbahubbahubba3 minutes ago
        Does anyone recall the Colonial Pipeline outage? They had their IT and OT networks segregated but without billing capacity nothing else mattered. You didn’t expect them to let the petrol flow for free, didja? All that it takes is for a “jump box” that spans or bridges supposedly segregated networks to be p0wned to permit compromise of the soft and chewy center.
      • toomuchtodo11 minutes ago
        Yes. The last federal administration attempted to use CISA to encourage better cyber outcomes for water supply systems, and the water industry and Republican states sued over it. There is no will to fix this, only to push the liability elsewhere.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=39243560">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=39243560</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20240409155326&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.awwa.org&#x2F;Portals&#x2F;0&#x2F;AWWA&#x2F;Government&#x2F;101323Insiders&#x2F;Action-Memo-Rescinding-Cyber-Memo-October-2023.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20240409155326&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.awwa....</a><p>(cybersecurity practitioner is a component of my professional persona)
      • alwa18 minutes ago
        I mean<p>Some of these municipal water plants in the US are independently operated by municipalities of awfully few people and even fewer resources to spare, often serving relatively vast areas…
  • phendrenad242 minutes ago
    Is this the true reason for the cyclosporasis outbreaks?
    • jfengel15 minutes ago
      Nah. Cyclospora is a parasite, not a virus.<p>[Riffing on the gag, not an actual misunderstanding, just to be clear.]
    • hubbahubbahubba10 minutes ago
      Can we still blame Mexico, Taylor Farms and Taco Bell as well?
  • malcolmgreaves1 hour ago
    &gt; “I think Minnesota is behind it,” Mr. Trump said on Friday in response to a reporter’s question about Iran’s possible involvement,<p>What a coward and a traitor to the American people.
    • baron81654 minutes ago
      He knows he brought these attacks with his war, but he doesn’t take the blame for anything.
      • AnimalMuppet27 minutes ago
        Either he knows and doesn&#x27;t want to take the blame, or he doesn&#x27;t know. I&#x27;m not sure which one is worse.
        • jeroenhd23 minutes ago
          He stopped going to security briefings before, maybe he simply doesn&#x27;t care to know.
      • puttycat20 minutes ago
        &gt; he brought these attacks with his war<p>I&#x27;m no Trump supporter and this war was a big mistake, but justifying a nation poisoning another&#x27;s civilian water supply is a bit upside down.
        • mplanchard11 minutes ago
          Yeah, what could we possibly have done[0] to justify an attack on our water supply????<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.commondreams.org&#x2F;news&#x2F;iran-water-desalination-plants" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.commondreams.org&#x2F;news&#x2F;iran-water-desalination-pl...</a>
        • throw12345678916 minutes ago
          Ask the people of Flint, Michigan?
        • krapp6 minutes ago
          We don&#x27;t follow &quot;rules&quot; in war anymore, according to &quot;Secretary of War&quot; Pete Hegseth. We show no quarter and take no prisoners, we pursue &quot;maximum lethality, not tepid legality.&quot;<p>That&#x27;s American policy now. The gloves are off, no holds barred, everything and everyone is on the table. So I guess we reap what we sow.
          • iwontberude3 minutes ago
            I hope it gets bad enough people wake tf up and do something with me about it.
    • vjvjvjvjghv33 minutes ago
      It was probably the same (imaginary) people who damaged the lining of the Reflecting Pool.<p>I think we should think about making blatant lies by politicians a crime.
      • dylan60419 minutes ago
        What&#x27;s one more crime compared to all of the ones they&#x27;ve already committed?
    • rozal58 minutes ago
      [dead]
  • mannanj40 minutes ago
    If I was in a power position, I could theoretically channel this water into my own private reservoirs and locations like private land, bunkers, etc to weather a disruption, and blame Iran and it would be really hard to validate.<p>I mean if I was in a power position I would have also disrupted those in positions who would be validating me, made journalism much harder and have algorithms with LLM-enhanced astroturf accounts running to label any questioning of the official narrative as conspiratorial or tin-foil hat.<p>I would probably be on sites like this downvoting people who said things like this. Yes. That&#x27;s how I would do it. edit: Oh I might even consider channeling that water to my data center friends!
    • maxerickson35 minutes ago
      You know water is kind of big right?
    • irishcoffee33 minutes ago
      I understand being mad, I also get mad.<p>This is a bit unhinged.
      • throw12345678919 minutes ago
        We used to say that about some things before Snowden. And then there was Snowden.
        • krapp3 minutes ago
          But they wouldn&#x27;t need to false-flag an excuse to capture and privatize resources, they could and would just do that openly. The government can just take whatever it wants through eminent domain.
  • aaron69546 minutes ago
    [dead]
  • neves23 minutes ago
    In this war initiated by USA and Israel, it isn&#x27;t Iran who&#x27;s attacking civil targets.