Cybersecurity Archives - Environmental Law Monitor

Filling up a glass with drinking water from kitchen tap

October 19, 2023 Cybersecurity / SDWA

EPA ‘Deletes’ Cybersecurity Safe Drinking Water Initiative

In the 1970’s, a series of tests of community water systems across the country led to some disturbing findings; varied standards of water containment, transmission, and handling were resulting in substantial health risks to more than a third of tested sources. In response, Congress passed the Safe Water Drinking Act of 1974 (SWDA), a landmark legislation setting basic standards for drinking water for the more than 150,000 municipal water sources, nationwide.

Over the ensuing decades, the SWDA has been expanded and updated with the times …

concept of cyber attack Cyber security is compromised. when the armor is destroyed The red key and the structure explode the polygon into smaller pieces. Computer system technology has been hacked.

March 9, 2023 Cybersecurity / EPA

Posted by: Daniel L. Klein

Cyber-Waterfare: the EPA Moves to Protect Key Infrastructure from Hackers

In 2021, an unidentified person hacked the computer controlling the water system in Oldsmar, Fla., and increased the concentration of sodium hydroxide 100 times the normal amount, in an attempt to poison people.

That same year, an unidentified hacker used a stolen password to delete certain programs from a water treatment program in the San Francisco Bay area.

Part of the reason attacks like these are increasing in number and sophistication is because there quite simply may not be a sufficient apparatus to prevent them. …