Why US power and water companies are vulnerable to cyber attacks

Why US power and water companies are vulnerable to cyber attacks

When the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was hacked in 2018, it took a mere six hours. Early this year, an intruder lurked in hundreds of computers related to water systems across the US. In Portland, Oregon, burglars installed malicious computers onto a grid providing power to a chunk of the Northwest.

Two of those cases – L.A. and Portland – were tests. The water threat was real, discovered by cyber security firm Dragos.