Council flags national attacks on water systems and urges basic controls

The convenor told the council that several water systems across the country have recently been targeted and that federal agencies have issued warnings and guidance. He shared links to FBI and CISA notices and said many of the vulnerabilities stem from vendors installing remote-management access with unchanged default credentials: "By and large, these water systems have outsourced remote management to vendors, and what happened is vendors put in these systems to be managed remotely with default credentials, default passwords." The convenor recommended reviewing the FBI and CISA guidance and shared that some states have allocated funds to identify and lock down exposed systems.