Tag Archive for: Water

School Districts Dealing With Broken Water Pipes, Fried Computer Servers and Mold Concerns – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

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Schools across North Texas are dealing with the same problems that many peoples’ homes are: buildings went without power and pipes are broken. Now that the power is back on in many areas, schools are trying to figure out just how bad the damage truly is.

Tractor-trailers rolled to Harpool Middle School in Denton ISD carrying massive dehumidifiers. The district is using them to dry out the building after two inches of water spread through 120,000 square feet of space.

“It’s not just water on the ground, it’s technology and computers, and teachers’ set up and materials that we deliver in instruction,” Denton ISD Superintendent Jamie Wilson said. “It was the bottom floor and the fire suppression went off and before we could get there to turn it off we were knee-deep.”

Wilson said several schools were being cleaned up, but Harpool would likely be moved to remote learning or to upper floors through spring break.

Schools across the area are trying to clean up, eager to get students learning again. They’ve already lost so much this school year and the hits just keep coming.

“It’s caused us to be flexible and that’s the nice way to say it,” Grand Prairie ISD spokesperson Sam Buchmeyer said.

He said technology crews were working to try to make sure computer systems and servers were back up and running after the power kept getting shut on and off — not ideal for computer equipment.

More than 20 schools in Arlington ISD, including Sam Houston High School were dealing with repairs.

“Some are minor and some are more significant,” Arlington ISD Superintendent Marcello Cavazos said.

Heritage Middle School in Grapevine-Colleyville ISD had 15 classrooms flooded and sheetrock needed to be replaced. Several schools in that district are also dealing with a Spectrum internet and phone outage which has taken away control of the HVAC system, internet, phones and security system.

Fort Worth ISD has closed school Monday and Tuesday of next week while it cleans up. Frisco ISD said it wouldn’t be ready for instruction next week.

Northwest ISD had various schools still trying to get water out.

“Some classrooms may have cosmetic damage due to the efforts our teams…

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Dayton’s drinking water systems have layers of security designed to prevent hacking, officials say

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News Highlights: Dayton’s drinking water systems have layers of security designed to prevent hacking, officials say

“This is what we do,” Powell said.

The SCADA of the city of Xenia water treatment plant is also not connected to the Internet for security reasons, said Joe Bates, water treatment supervisor.

A hacker gained access to the system that controls the water treatment plant of an Oldsmar, a Florida city of 15,000 residents, and attempted to contaminate the water supply with a caustic chemical, exposing a hazard that cybersecurity experts say has grown as systems both become more automated as more accessible via the internet.

The hacker who broke the system at the Oldsmar city water treatment plant on Friday using a remote access program shared by factory workers briefly increased the amount of sodium hydroxide by a factor of a hundred (from 100 parts per million to 11,100 parts per million), Sheriff Bob Gualtieri of Pinellas County said during a news conference Monday.

Experts say municipal water and other systems have the potential to be an easy target for hackers, as local governments’ computing infrastructure is often underfunded.

Robert M. Lee, CEO of Dragos Security, and a specialist in industrial operating system vulnerabilities, said remote access to industrial operating systems such as those …

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Dayton’s drinking water systems have layers of security to curb hacking, officials say

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“This is what we do,” Powell said.

The city of Xenia water treatment plant’s SCADA also is not connected to the internet because of security reasons, said Joe Bates, water treatment supervisor.

A hacker gained entry to the system controlling the water treatment plant of a Oldsmar, a Florida city of 15,000, and tried to taint the water supply with a caustic chemical, exposing a danger cybersecurity experts say has grown as systems become both more computerized and accessible via the internet.

The hacker who breached the system at the city of Oldsmar’s water treatment plant on Friday using a remote access program shared by plant workers briefly increased the amount of sodium hydroxide by a factor of one hundred (from 100 parts per million to 11,100 parts per million), Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said during a news conference Monday.

Experts say municipal water and other systems have the potential to be easy targets for hackers because local governments’ computer infrastructure tends to be underfunded.

Robert M. Lee, CEO of Dragos Security, and a specialist in industrial control system vulnerabilities, said remote access to industrial control systems such as those running water treatment plants has become increasingly common.

“As industries become more digitally connected, we will continue to see more states and criminals target these sites for the impact they have on society,” Lee said.

ExploreDayton loses billions of gallons of water every year. What is it doing to stop the costly leaks?

Eight years ago Dayton officials made the decision not to put the computer systems that control its water plants on the internet because they noticed cybersecurity threats were on the rise, Powell said. The city also joined associations such as the Water Information Sharing and Analysis Center ― WaterISAC ― that alerts them whenever threats or other issues emerge relating to drinking water.

About 6 a.m. Tuesday, Powell received an alert from WaterISAC informing him about the breach in Florida and recommending eight action steps water utilities needed to take immediately to avoid similar hacks. Powell reviewed the list and said Dayton had already taken all those steps, he said.

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Florida Water Plant Hackers Exploited Old Software And Poor Password Habits

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The world took notice when a cyber attacker breached a Florida city’s water treatment plant and tried to poison the water supply. New details about the incident reveal serious cyber security shortcomings at the plant.

As reported by Ars Technica, a Private Industry Notification (PIN) from the FBI noted two major issues. One was that the compromised computer at the Oldsmar water treatment facility was running an “outdated Windows 7 operating system.”

That statement applies to pretty much any computer running Windows 7 at this point. As of January 14 last year Microsoft had stopped offering software updates, security updates or fixes and technical support for Windows 7. Ahead of that date Microsoft had warned that “While you could continue to use your PC running Windows 7, without continued software and security updates, it will be at greater risk for viruses and malware.”

Microsoft had already extended support for Windows 7 on a couple of occasions and the company provides plenty of notice when it’s ending support. Nevertheless it’s not uncommon for organizations to continue using an operating system beyond its end-of-support date.

Specialized applications — like those that control the water treatment system at the Florida plant — may not be compatible with a newer OS. Faced with the possibility of a broken piece of critical software, many organizations choose to continue running the outdated OS. This incident once again underscored just how risky that practice can be.

Another failing revealed in the Bureau’s notification is that staff all utilized the same password for remote access via the Teamviewer application. That same password was used on all of the plant’s computers and it’s believed that the attacker(s) used that password to break in.

That’s two very big cyber security strikes already. The third? The plant’s computers “appeared to be connected directly to the Internet without any type of firewall protection installed.”

Firewalls provide a first line of defense against unauthorized access. They’re an important part network security in any situation. In a case where the…

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