OLDSMAR, FLORIDA, a small town of 14,000 or so people, is an unlikely site for an attempted cyber massacre. So when an operator at the city’s water treatment plant noticed someone briefly accessing its network early on February 5th, he assumed it was a supervisor checking in. In the middle of a pandemic, remote working would hardly be unusual. But complacency turned to alarm at lunchtime, when he noticed that someone had seized control of his cursor for several minutes and increased the level of sodium hydroxide—a caustic alkaline chemical used in small amounts to control the acidity of water, and in larger quantities in drain cleaner—more than a hundredfold.The effort to poison Floridians failed when the watchful operator promptly reversed the move, long before the chemical composition of the water supply could change. Had he not, other monitoring systems at the plant would have noticed the change in pH level and sounded the alarm, according to the city’s mayor. “At no time was there a significant adverse effect on the water being treated,” said the local sheriff, at a press conference on February 8th. “Importantly, the public was never in danger.” The residents of Oldsmar may not be so sanguine. The attack is a reminder that the growing digitalisation of critical infrastructure has rendered it vulnerable as never before.
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