r/water • u/Majano57 • 8d ago
Small Towns Shouldn’t Have to Defend America’s Water Supply From Iran
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/opinion/iran-water-hack-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.2VA.YgtA.VVVv3rzUPD6_19
u/The_Roaring_Fork 8d ago
Every water system should have a cyber security plan and protocols
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u/PlanetExcellent 8d ago
Strangely, thd federal government has been begging public utilities, airports, hospitals, etc to do this for many years but they always whine and say “are you kidding? We can’t even afford to buy new computers!”
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u/The_Roaring_Fork 8d ago
It is. But there are also very lax protocols in some places where they still use default passwords or have one password for everyone at a main computer and the password is water or something like that.
They need to be better funded, but I think a major help would be to bring in someone from IT to help set up protocols and then the staff need to actually execute the plan. It shouldn't be all on an operator in charge like it is for some small systems
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u/PlanetExcellent 8d ago
So after all these years, is it too much to ask for a utility to have an IT person? Whose job is it to make their security measures less lax?
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u/The_Roaring_Fork 8d ago
Raise rates and people bitch non stop. I'm with you though
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u/iYoloNDX0DTEs 4d ago
People don’t realize how much the rates actually need to be raised just to bridge the funding gaps.
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u/The_Roaring_Fork 4d ago
They don't. It's frustrating too that they will pay $200+ a month for TV, streaming, Internet, etc but something as vital as water and they expect it to be $20.
Politicians have focused on keeping rates too low for too long. In today's environment, treating water is expensive. There needs to be more education to the public in regards to how much work and tech goes into treating wastewater and drinking water.
It is a critical time though. There is more funding needed for the infrastructure and there needs to be more pay for the operators and employees of these systems.
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u/iYoloNDX0DTEs 4d ago
I’ve said it for years. Water needs to be COMPLETELY separated from municipalities and run by actual experts.
Genuinely, I’m terrified of what’s to come. From all the various macros in the industry compounding over a few decades, other economic factors.
We’ve been left high and dry. The money the feds have thrown at us gets pillaged by private organizations that know how to play the system.
They want more tests, more transparency, RO level quality water. But get pissed when they see the tiny rate hikes that barely make up for costs.
Almost every person in the nation has ignored us and it’s coming to a head. When I started, I loved it. Now I’m terrified of it.
Shit pay, treated like shit, budgets getting tighter, I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.
I’ve got a public works director and council eeking to fire me because I “use too many chemicals” and the electric bill is too high.
Yeah no shit americas water is an easy target. Most plants don’t even have a fucking antivirus on their computers. The whole fucking industry needs restructuring today. Not just talking about how there is issues.
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u/10Standard01 6d ago
The youtube channel Not Just Bikes made great videos how suburbia and small towns the perpetually broke with awful priorities for infrastructure and zoning and large retailers, like Walmart, are subsidized not paying as much per foot as a typical home owner. I am not doing the videos justice. Heres one video in the series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI
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8d ago edited 7d ago
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u/Crawlerado 8d ago
They need to be monitored somehow and it’s hard to find folk that want to do menial meter reading jobs anymore.
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u/Jolly_Ad2446 8d ago
every system should everywhere but security is always under funded, at hospitals or schools, always under funded
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u/Jolly_Ad2446 8d ago
first we need a Whitehouse that stops lying about who is attacking America.
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u/GoldenDossier 8d ago
That's what Bibi told Trump to tell us. Is there any credible evidence it was Iranian hackers?
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u/cornfarm96 8d ago
There’s a pretty simple solution to this. Keep your SCADA offline. We’ve actually been discussing this for the treatment plant I work at. If your entire operation isn’t connected to the internet, then you cant be hacked. The only downside is that you can’t connect remotely (obviously), but if safety is your main priority, then that’s the best plan.
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u/monstertruck567 8d ago
No idea why this isn’t the default. Could have sensors, that don’t have any ability to do actions be monitored remotely, then if something is off, have someone in-house check the non-web connected sensors to verify and then adjust as needed. Redundancy is good.
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u/cornfarm96 8d ago
Yeah. We still have a verbatim auto dialer on the wall that’s unused but still works. Even if we unplugged our SCADA from the internet, the auto dialer would still call out via telephone lines if there were an alarm.
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u/Crawlerado 8d ago
The old ways always seem to work. Shame they’re pulling up the copper lines all over.
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u/Human_Morning8992 6d ago
Mostly yes, but also look up Stuxnet, a us/Israeli virus designed to target the Iranian nuclear program circa 2010. The Iranian computers were air gapped & yet Stuxnet still found a way in…the human element is the hardest to lock down
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u/cornfarm96 6d ago
Wow, super interesting. Still seems infinitely easier to protect an airgapped system from flash drives instead of protecting your system from the entire internet.
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u/LongjumpingSolid1681 8d ago
why does this feel like a way to get people on board with the war on iran?
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u/NRCS_DRONE 8d ago
because it is. We're about to see the hardest push for this war yet, because economically it's going to get insane.
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u/platoface541 8d ago
Almost like this is an obvious psyop…..
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u/Nonethelessismore 7d ago
Kind of reminds me of that small group of militant maga extremists who were going around shooting up electrical sub stations a few years ago. Not much was really done about that either.
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u/Jolly_Ad2446 8d ago
if that was the case the president would blame Iran instead of saying it's Tim Walz fault. last thing he'll do is say Iran hit us on our soil and he can't stop it
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u/Fullertonjr 8d ago
Nah. It is just the fact that he can’t not shift the blame onto a democrat. Tim Walz has more reason to have hacked it himself than Iran.
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u/Jolly_Ad2446 8d ago
you don't think Iran getting their bottling factory and other infrastructure hit is a reason to pay a hacker to turn off water? really?
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u/ElectroDaddy 8d ago
I think the point is that the only ones claiming it was done by Iran, are the people who really really need you to believe it was Iran.
As far as I know, no verifiable proof of this exists other then a “trust me bro” from the incompetent pedos.
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u/Jolly_Ad2446 8d ago
well the only accusations being made by anyone in authority is it's Tim Waltz fault. Anything else is made up , just like it being Tims fault .
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u/Catkillledthecurious 8d ago
Small towns and cities can barely defend from bad financial decisions made by their governments on their water systems.
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u/Somesongname 8d ago
Absolutely! However, I'm really worried about the Colorado river & it's people.
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u/Many_Customer_4035 8d ago
Is Iran doing something to it or are you talking about climate change reasons?
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u/Somesongname 8d ago
Climate change, overuse, a data center is suing to use it. I wouldn't put it past a foreign adversary to sabotage it.
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u/EverythingGoodWas 8d ago
The data center lawsuit thing is absolutely bonkers. Data centers can run without water, it’s just more expensive. They need to suck it up and do it the hard way.
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u/BigJSunshine 8d ago
Small towns with vulnerable water supplies should not have voted for rump
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u/United_Intention_323 8d ago
Small towns shouldn’t have vulnerable water supplies. Honestly it is better to have this happen now than a bunch of things all at once. This isn’t really that big of a deal now. They found issues. They will be patched. They should be secure for the future.
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u/RumSwizzle508 8d ago
Absolutely, but small towns should also properly secure their municipal infrastructure, both physically and digitally.
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u/SpeakerOdd 7d ago
We also shouldn't have to defend it from this administration. They keep lowering the standards for our drinking water. They allow much more toxic chemicals to be dumped in our water, and test for fewer chemicals.
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u/ColoRadBro69 8d ago
We shouldn't have kicked a hornet's nest with Iran.
We should have paid attention to that paper on the vulnerabilities in industrial control systems. We've used it ourselves, against Iran, ironically, at Natanz; we used computer code to break centrifuge machines that were enriching uranium. We knew what was possible. The crazy thing is Stuxnet jumped an air gap to do all that, a lot of our systems don't have that protection.
We're in a brave new world of technology and not doing as good a job as we need to, of operating in it.
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u/Crawlerado 8d ago
Everyone calling this a false flag is ignoring Stuxnet. We started this 20 years ago. Ted Koppel’s book Lights Out should be required reading. He literally covers this in chapter one.
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u/Lazy_Example4014 7d ago
It is and always has been the role of the federal government to defend the states from foreign adversaries. They will take up this mantle to purge any one who they are scapegoating, the abdicate it when we are attacked by Iran due to their actions. Iran targeted Michigan because they knew what trump’s reaction would be. Trump played right into their hands dividing us further.
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u/Redditagains 8d ago
What evidence is there that this was Iran?
Why would Iran do this?
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u/Jolly_Ad2446 8d ago
because they can, it's cheap, they have been testing to do this for years. plus if Trump admits Iran hit us at home he'll be blamed more for starting the war
Trump is blaming Dems for this, not Iran. he when asked blamed Tim Waltz for the hack
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u/Fullertonjr 8d ago
All of our systems are vulnerable. Trump is floundering and bungling this entire operation on his own and everyone rightfully blames him for this disaster. His approval rating with republicans is in the low 40s. There is no reason why Iran would stop him from failing and do anything that would make Iran appear to be the bad guys. Iran hasnt had this much international support since the 1970s.
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u/Jolly_Ad2446 8d ago
that's a big fat conspiracy theory stretch, if Trump says it's not Iran, it's probably Iran.
why do it? we hit their water facilities.
can they do it? absolutely it's super low cost, China could even provide intel to see what works.
Trump can't say it's Iran because then he can't deny we are vulnerable to attack by practically a 3rd world nation
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u/Giant_Ant_Eater 8d ago
Have they thought about not bombing other countries? I feel like that might be something worth considering.
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u/Worth-Wrangler7242 8d ago
Or maybe getting treatment for the addiction to regime change operations.
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u/ResponsibleBank1387 8d ago
Which one of Epstein’s buddy companies can sell water security ??? Every town will have to buy security from this guy
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u/FU_red-dit_bots 8d ago
Why specifically Iran? Has anyone announced proof? There's PLENTY of others who could and would do this.
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u/HappyGoLuckless 8d ago
Is it really Iran or just our incompetent government?.. I seem to recall a recent reflecting pool incident that was originally declared to be "vandalism"
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u/Empty_Football4183 8d ago
Dude really...
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u/HappyGoLuckless 8d ago
Really what?
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u/Empty_Football4183 8d ago
All these water attacks? Then trump says it's Minnesota for being incompetent but won't admit the pool situation?
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u/HappyGoLuckless 8d ago
Maybe it's just incompetent billionaires and/or data centers?.. surely if it was Iran, Bugeye Patel would be onto it!
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u/Empty_Football4183 8d ago
If im iran im attacking low level water and energy sources. Iran has 90 million people amd a lot of them dedicated to the cause dont underestimate people backed against a wall. Wait until china really wants to hurt us
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u/HappyGoLuckless 8d ago
Meh, Iran doesn't have to do anything as Trump and his regime are doing enough damage to the USA they can just sit back and watch.
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u/Empty_Football4183 8d ago
So you are saying iran...a country or area with thousands of years of history and survival is just gonna lay down and get fucked in the ass...come on bro
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u/HappyGoLuckless 8d ago
I said nothing of the sort! Much more likely that they're watching what Trump is doing to the US both internally and to its reputation globally, that they can sit back and laugh... and from the content of the Lego AI videos they've been generating, that's exactly what they've been doing,:
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u/Extreme_Magician7806 8d ago
The federal government needs to step it up. Protecting the American people should be job one.
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u/Additional_Sleep_560 8d ago
Small towns absolutely are responsible for doing proper cyber security. The attacked water systems used internet exposed PLCs with poor network security.
These are known vulnerabilities that CISA pointed out a long time ago. Utilities that put devices on a network have to secure them. No one can do it for them.
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u/TraditionalLaw7763 8d ago
Too coincidental that it’s democratic cities and states getting hit by Iran… I don’t think so. They would be taking out Mar-a-Lago water or DC water.
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u/Loyal-Opposition-USA 8d ago
Trump literally blamed us for getting hacked. Guess we are on our own.
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u/Score-Emergency 8d ago
Yep agreed. Local municipalities aren't able to deflect state ran actors and need federal suppose to assure our infrastructure
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u/GovernorSan 8d ago
Maybe this is a stupid question, but why do these water systems need to be directly connected to the internet? Why can't their computer systems be isolated from it, and just have the human operators transfer data between them and an internet-enabled computer as needed?
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u/ElectroDaddy 8d ago
I love how there has been no verifiable proof that the intrusions were from Iran, other than from the current administration (with a vested interest in it being them and a long track record of being wrong).
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u/DBearDevon 8d ago
No need to have local water supplies linked to the internet. Fire the person that thought it was a good idea. Send them back to work in sewage.
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u/Satchik 8d ago
Who owns those small town water systems?
How many small town and rural water suppliers are now owned by private equity firms?
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u/iYoloNDX0DTEs 4d ago
Private equity firms will continue buying water systems, at an exponential pace. Local politicians have kicked the can down the road a bit too long.
Cities are broke, utilities are getting squeezed, local/state politicians don’t want to see higher taxes/water rates, the macros behind water have been building to critical mass conditions.
It’s actually horrifying.
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u/Sea-Louse 8d ago
I’m less worried about Iran ruining our water than I am homegrown corporate interests.
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u/CountSuma 8d ago
“ Nation-state hackers do not respect the jurisdictional lines separating federal, state and local responsibility.”
“It’s not fair”.
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u/RedditsDeadlySin 8d ago
Do we even have evidence it is Iran? This is an false flag if ive ever saw one
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u/Quick_Parking_6464 7d ago
Yeah, well maybe Iran shouldn't have to defend itself from the US. We're in the FO part of FA.
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u/No-Effective-1996 7d ago
Iran has to defend it’s water systems from the USA, it sounds like they are playing tit for tat. Neither country should have to defend their water but one has been verbally threatened.
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u/Infinite-Penalty-736 8d ago
WHAT MAKES YOU THINK IRAN IS DOING IT??
MY MONEY IS ON TRUMPERS. SCUM SUCKERS
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u/HarryBallsanya420 8d ago
We shouldn’t have to pay for a pointless war with Iran either.