Learning from the Florida Water Hack | exida

exida Recorded Webinars

Learning from the Florida Water Hack

Recording Date: February 2021

In early February of this year a water treatment facility was compromised in Florida. The attackers successfully increased the concentration of sodium hydroxide (also known as lye) by a factor of 100 risking potential illness for the public as well as significant erosion and pipe damage. Fortunately, operators of the Oldsmar water treatment facility saw the attackers increase the concentration and were able to return the concentration to normal levels before there was any risk for harm to the public. This near-miss highlights several important trends for industrial cybersecurity: Industrial cybersecurity incidents can have major health and safety implications, Critical infrastructure makes an attractive target to a variety of hackers, Critical infrastructure is highly susceptible to cybersecurity attack. In this webinar we will review what is known so far about the attack on the Florida water system and identify practical steps that can be taken to improve the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure systems.

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About the Presenter:

Patrick O'Brien

Patrick O’Brien Patrick O’Brien is a Safety and Cybersecurity Engineer at exida LLC, where he performs numerous end user focused training, consulting, and support services for industrial facilities in functional safety and cybersecurity. In addition to his consulting work, he has assisted with product development through testing, application specification, and the creation of user tutorials for the exSILentia® software platform, including significant work with the exida CyberPHAx™ and CyberSL tools. He has assisted with the development of exida training material and other knowledge-based content. He also helped develop cybersecurity projects through technical support and the translation of cybersecurity documents between English and German. Mr. O’Brien recently graduated from the Pennsylvania State University with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and a Bachelor of Science in German Language and Culture.