Tag: treatment | SpinSafe

Former Contractor Employee Charged for Hacking California Water Treatment Facility

July 8, 2023/in Computer Security

A 53-year-old man from Tracy, California, has been charged for allegedly hacking into the systems of a water treatment facility in an attempt to delete critical software.

The suspect, Rambler Gallo, has been charged with “transmitting a program, information, code, and command to cause damage to a protected computer”, but this is a case of unauthorized access rather than actual hacking.

Gallo worked for a company contracted by the town of Discovery Bay in California to operate its water treatment facility, which serves 15,000 residents.

He worked at the company between 2016 and the end of 2020, and during this time he allegedly installed software that allowed him to access the facility’s systems from his personal computer.

After he resigned in January 2021, he used that remote access software to enter the water facility’s systems and “transmitted a command to uninstall software that was the main hub of the facility’s computer network and that protected the entire water treatment system, including water pressure, filtration, and chemical levels,” according to a press release from authorities in the Northern District of California.

Gallo faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

It’s not uncommon for water facilities to be targeted, including by former employees. One of the most well-known incidents involves the water plant in Oldsmar, Florida. While initially it was believed that malicious hackers had tried to poison the water supply, recent reports said the incident did not involve any hacking and it may have actually been the result of human error.

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SJ ‘Uptown Apartments’ Get Upscale Treatment Aimed at Young Professional Tenants

January 14, 2023/in Internet Security

A Florida entrepreneur says he’s fallen in love with St. Joseph and Michigan’s Great Southwest! As a result, Leonard Schulz is totally renovating an apartment complex in ‘Uptown St. Joe’, near the key intersection of Niles Avenue and Main Street.

Schulz tells us the ‘Uptown Apartments’, which have been quietly serving tenants at 1117 Niles Avenue since the 1970s, will soon take on an ‘upscale’ feel, catering to young professionals who have followed employment to St. Joseph or Benton Harbor, but are frustrated when they look for a nice apartment to call “home.”

There are eight one-bedroom apartments in the Uptown building. Schulz describes them as “roomy, very adequate size-wise.” However, he says, they of course need updating to appeal the the Millennials and Gen-Z tenants he’s targeting. All the apartments will be essentially the same and rent in the $1200 per month range when they go on the market late Winter or early Spring.

Schulz says infrastructure is being updated throughout the complex, including internet, security cameras and locked storage areas for each unit. Landscaping and outdoor lighting will follow in the Spring. He promises there will be a “new fresh feel” to the entire project. Schulz says there is off-street parking for each unit.

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When asked about how he came to acquire the Uptown Apartments, the Palm Beach Gardens, Florida resident smiles, chuckles and shares a story.

“I was looking for a house and ended up buying the apartments. They were listed one day and I bought them by noon the next day. I was the first one in a line that formed quickly.”

Schulz said the property seemed to jump out at him from the online listings. So he quickly called his realtor, who went to the location and gave Schulz a quick “Facetime” walk-through. He decided to make an offer and by the end of the day, the deal was done.

Schulz also bought a house on Highland Avenue along the St. Joseph River, where he expects to spend the warmer weather months, while maintaining his Florida residence in the Winter. He says he never imagined himself as a “Michigander”, but developed a…

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Hacker Accessed Bay Area Water Treatment Computer System

June 20, 2021/in Computer Security

(TNS) — A hacker accessed the computer system of a Bay Area water treatment plant in January and deleted programs the plant used to treat drinking water, a senior intelligence official confirmed Thursday.

NBC News first reported Thursday that the unidentified hacker used a former plant employee’s username and password to gain entry to the unidentified Bay Area water treatment facility on Jan. 15.

Michael Sena, executive director of the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, confirmed NBC’s report about the security breach, but declined to say where it occurred or who carried it out.

Sena also declined to say whether the hacker would face criminal prosecution.

The NBC report stated that the hacker “tried to poison” the Bay Area water supply, an assertion Sena disputed.

“No one tried to poison any of our water,” he said. “That is not accurate”

Tampering with the computer programs used to treat drinking water would be unlikely to result in any widespread poisoning, Sena said.

“It takes a lot to influence a water supply chain,” he said. “For a large impact, there has to be a large change in the chemicals in the system. The amount of chemicals it would take to cause harm to people…the numbers are astronomical.”

The Jan. 15 hack represented “no specific threat to public safety,” he added.

News of the breach comes as officials continue to investigate May’s Colonial Pipeline cyber attack, which shuttered gas stations from Texas to New Jersey and raised new concerns about the vulnerability of American infrastructure.

The San Francisco-based Northern California Regional Intelligence Center works with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to track suspicious activity, criminal activity and threats to the region’s infrastructure.

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