Florida authorities and the FBI said Monday that they have some leads to follow in their search for the hacker(s) who tried to taint water at an Oldsmar treatment plant not far from Tampa ahead of Super Bowl weekend.
“Right now we do not have a suspect identified but we do have leads that we’re following,” Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said Monday.
“We don’t know right now whether the breach originated from within the United States or outside the country. We also do not know why the Oldsmar system was targeted and we have no knowledge of any other systems being unlawfully accessed.”
Police said that the plant’s system was first breached at around 8 a.m. Friday but only for a few moments. An operator spotted the remote access and thought it was just one of his supervisors who “regularly” did the same.
Then again at around 1:30 p.m., “someone again remotely accessed the computer system, and it showed up on the operator’s screen with a mouse being moved about to open various software functions that control the water being treated.”
The hacker altered, in less than five minutes, the amount of sodium hydroxide or lye used for water treatment aims from 100 parts-per-million to 11,100 parts-per-million.
“This is obviously a significant and potentially dangerous increase,” Gualtieri said. “Sodium hydroxide, also known as lye, is the main ingredient in liquid drain cleaners.”
He continued: “It’s also used to control water acidity and remove metals from drinking water in the water treatment plants.”
Fortunately, plant operators noticed the penetration and reduced the sodium hydroxide back to normal immediately.
Police added that even if they did not, it would have taken up to 36 hours for the contaminated water to be released, and only after several safeguards’ checks.
US Senator Marco Rubio said that the FBI will “provide all assistance necessary” to identify the suspect(s).
“This should be treated as a matter of National Security,” he insisted.
