Report Secretary warns of 'serious' cyber-threat, devastating natural disaster

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned on Thursday that a major cyber attack is a looming threat and could have the same sort of impact as last year's Superstorm Sandy, which knocked out electricity in a large swathe of the Northeast.

Napolitano said a "cyber 9/11" could happen "imminently" and that critical infrastructure — including water, electricity and gas — was very vulnerable to such a strike.

"We shouldn't wait until there is a 9/11 in the cyber world. There are things we can and should be doing right now that, if not prevent, would mitigate the extent of damage," said Napolitano, speaking at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington and referring to the September 11, 2001 attacks. Napolitano runs the sprawling Homeland Security Department that was created 10 years ago in the aftermath of September 11 and charged with preventing another such event.

Why can the supply of water, electricity and gas be controlled over the internet? I dont see why they would be doing this.

Nah, there's nothing to worry about Or, is it?
Maybe It's Just a "false" operation?

Probably unrelated but, at my old workplace, all our washrooms had those infrared sensors on their taps. So, they only let water out when your hand was under the faucet. Hi-tech stuff. Problem is, those things were prone to breaking down and about 50% of the taps wouldn't work at any point in time.

It was silly.

Accname said:

Why can the supply of water, electricity and gas be controlled over the internet? I dont see why they would be doing this.

Click to expand...

I assumed it was just the records of resource usage that would be wiped or changed.

Still, why does this have to be connected to the internet?
You could always have a backup server without internet connection but with a lan network to another server which could provide the data to users who want to access it. And several times a day the public server is completely wiped and reset by the backup server.

Time to put my tinfoil hat on.