OLDSMAR, Fla. — It’s not the first place you’d expect an attack, but cybersecurity experts say they’re not surprised Pinellas County's critical infrastructure became a prime target over Super Bowl weekend.
“It’s pretty scary,” said Jeremy Rasmussen, Chief Technology Officer for local cybersecurity firm Abacode.
“We know hackers often step up their game during major sporting events, holidays, natural disasters and really use it as an opportunity, ‘While you’re distracted looking over there, we’re gonna try something over here.’”
Among other projects, Rasmussen’s firm works to secure critical infrastructure, including water plants across the Bay area.
“The guy saw his cursor and mouse moving on the screen and he’s clicking on things and changing the sodium hydroxide levels,” Rasmussen said. “I mean that’s shocking.”
That’s because it’s not supposed to happen. Best practices would normally require operational software to be kept separate from computers online.
“That’s definitely an 'op-sec' - an operational security issue that they allowed this to happen,” Rasmussen said.
This week, Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri urged other municipalities to review their systems to prevent something similar from happening again. And it’s not just their water supply.
A wide array of other critical infrastructure also needs to be protected. From power grids to communications, bridges and even traffic signals. The wrong attack could cost lives.
“This could have been a test run… a test drive to see if they could do something and if they did, maybe they were going to try on a more widespread attack basis,” Rasmussen said.
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