Cyber Incidents Put U.S. Water Infrastructure And Public Safety At Risk

06 Oct Cyber Incidents Put U.S. Water Infrastructure And Public Safety At Risk

This week in cybersecurity from the editors at Cybercrime Magazine

Sausalito, Calif. – Oct. 6, 2026

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A new study shows that malware stealing employee passwords has put more than a thousand U.S. water and wastewater providers at risk of cyberattacks. Researchers found these issues while analyzing systems registered with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), raising concerns about how safe our water infrastructure really is.

Recent hacks have also highlighted weak spots like manufacturer-set default passwords in the mechanical switches and physical controllers used by critical infrastructure.

Michael Centrella, Head of Public Policy at SecurityScorecard, recently joined Cybercrime Magazine Podcast host Amanda Glassner, and Scott Schober, cybersecurity expert and author of the popular book Hacked Again, and discussed a recent series of cyber incidents involving water and wastewater systems, and why it’s important for Americans to care about this right now.

“The first thing that Americans should understand is that this is not simply a story about hackers attacking a computer network,” says Centrella, who previously served as Assistant Director at the U.S. Secret Service. “When we’re talking about the water and waste water systems, we’re talking about infrastructure that directly supports public health, public safety, economic activity and virtually every other critical infrastructure sector.”

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