Tag Archive for: florida

Someone tried to poison Florida city’s water supply during hack, sheriff says

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TAMPA, Fla. — Local and federal authorities are investigating after an attempt Friday to poison the city of Oldsmar’s water supply, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.



a couple of people that are standing in a room: Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri speaks at a press conference Monday, Feb. 8, 2021, along with Oldsmar Mayor Eric Seidel, left.

© Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office/TNS
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri speaks at a press conference Monday, Feb. 8, 2021, along with Oldsmar Mayor Eric Seidel, left.

Someone remotely accessed a computer for the city’s water treatment system and briefly increased the amount of sodium hydroxide, also known as lye, by a factor of more than 100, Gualtieri said at a news conference Monday. The chemical is used in small amounts to control the acidity of water but it’s also a corrosive compound commonly found in household cleaning supplies such as liquid drain cleaners.

The city’s water supply was not affected. A supervisor working remotely saw the concentration being changed on his computer screen and immediately reverted it, Gualtieri said. City officials on Monday emphasized that several other safeguards are in place to prevent contaminated water from entering the water supply and said they’ve disabled the remote-access system used in the attack.

The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office is investigating, along with the FBI and the Secret Service, Gualtieri said.

Nobody has been arrested, Gualtieri said, though investigators have some leads. They do not know why the city of Oldsmar was targeted, he said. He added that other area municipalities have been alerted to the attack and encouraged to inspect the safeguards to their water treatment systems and other infrastructure.

Though some cities obtain water through Pinellas County, Oldsmar provides water directly to its businesses and roughly 15,000 residents, Gualtieri said. The computer system at the water treatment plant was set up to allow authorized users to remotely access it for troubleshooting.

A plant operator was monitoring the system at about 8 a.m. EST Friday and noticed that someone briefly accessed it. He didn’t find this unusual, Gualtieri said, because his supervisor remotely accessed the system regularly.

But at about 1:30 p.m. the same day, Gualtieri said, someone accessed the system again. This time, he said, the…

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Hacker tries to poison water supply of Florida city – BBC News

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Hacker tries to poison water supply of Florida city  BBC News

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Hackers get patients’ PHI after inflicting malware on Florida hospital’s computer network

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Jackie Drees –


hit by a malware attack in November that exposed patients’ protected health information, the Doral, Fla.-based hospital announced Jan. 8.

The hospital discovered Nov. 8 that portions of its computer network were infected with malware. Leon Medical Centers took its systems offline immediately after discovering the cyberattack, according to the news release.

LMC’s investigation revealed that hackers accessed patients’ information including names, Social Security numbers, financial details, Medicaid numbers and health insurance details.

The hospital is still identifying affected individuals and said it will mail written notification letters as soon as possible.

More articles on cybersecurity:
LSU Health discovers September cyberattack extended to partner hospital 
West Virginia health center email breach exposes 3,700+ patients’ info
Maryland hospital brings EHR back online 1 month after ransomware attack

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Florida launches investigation into hacking of its servers

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida officials acknowledged Friday that state servers appear to have been compromised by overseas hackers who gained entry by imbedding malicious code into networking software from a Texas-based software company, SolarWinds.

Two Florida officials who have knowledge of the matter but spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about it said the hackers apparently infiltrated systems of the Agency for Healthcare Administration, which runs the state’s Medicaid program, and other agencies.

It was unclear what information the hackers may have taken, the officials said.

“We will continue to review and monitor the situation,” the Florida Department of Management Services said in a statement to The Associated Press late Friday. “Florida, like many states, continues to coordinate with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security – Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and additional federal, state, and local partners on all matters related to cybersecurity.”

Software from SolarWinds has been at the center of global worries over a spate of hackings into computer systems operated by government agencies and major companies. The intruders apparently exploited vulnerabilities in the company’s software.

SolarWinds had begun alerting 33,000 of its customers that an “outside nation state” — widely suspected to be Russia — had inserted malicious code into some versions of its Orion software. The software helps network administrators monitor the performance of their servers and systems.

The Florida officials were not prepared to discuss how serious the breach might have been amid conflicting statements and information from some companies involved in investigating the breach.

The officials said they were still trying to understand to what extent their systems were penetrated, whether any data was harvested and, if so, for what purpose.

Outside meddling has been an especially sensitive issue in Florida because of previous breaches by Russian hackers.

Last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered his secretary of state to launch a review of election security after revelations that Russian hackers infiltrated election systems in…

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