Someone surreptitiously gained access to a Bay Area community's water supply and deleted programs that treat drinking water, NBC News reported.
The breach happened on January 15 and was noticed the next day by workers at the unnamed facility, who changed passwords and added the programs back in. The individual is being referred to as a hacker, but it doesn't appear it took much hacking to get in. The person got hold of a former plant employee's username and password, and simply logged themselves into the system.
Although NBC News said the hacker "tried to poison" the Bay Area's drinking water, that assertion was disputed by a Northern California Regional Intelligence Center official who spoke with the San Francisco Chronicle. (SFGATE and the Chronicle are both owned by Hearst, but operate independently of one another.)
"It takes a lot to influence a water supply chain," executive director Michael Sena said. "For a large impact, there has to be a large change in the chemicals in the system. The amount of chemicals it would take to cause harm to people…the numbers are astronomical."
https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/sf-bay-area-water-treatment-facility-hack-16260655.php?IPID=SFGate-HP-CP-Spotlight