is a senior science reporter covering energy and the environment with more than a decade of experience. She is also the host of Hell or High Water: When Disaster Hits Home , a podcast from Vox Media and Audible Originals.
Our water, health, and energy systems are increasingly vulnerable to cyberattack.
Now, when tensions escalate — like when the US bombed nuclear facilities in Iran this month — the safety of these systems becomes of paramount concern. If conflict erupts, we can expect it to be a “hybrid” battle, Joshua Corman, executive in residence for public safety & resilience at the Institute for Security and Technology (IST), tells The Verge.
“With great connectivity comes great responsibility.”
Battlefields now extend into the digital world, which in turn makes critical infrastructure in the real world a target. I first reached out to IST for their expertise on this issue back in 2021, when a ransomware attack forced the Colonial Pipeline — a major artery transporting nearly half of the east coast’s fuel supply — offline for nearly a week. Since then, The Verge has also covered an uptick in cyberattacks against community water systems in the US, and America’s attempts to thwart assaults supported by other governments.
It’s not time to panic, Corman reassures me. But it is important to reevaluate how we safeguard hospitals, water supplies, and other lifelines from cyberattack. There happen to be analog solutions that rely more on physical engineering than putting up cyber firewalls.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
As someone who works on cybersecurity for water and wastewater, healthcare, food supply chains, and power systems — what keeps you up at night?
Oh, boy. When you look across what we designate as lifeline critical functions, the basic human needs — water, shelter, safety — those are among some of our most exposed and underprepared. With great connectivity comes great responsibility. And while we’re struggling to protect credit card cards or websites or data, we continue to add software and connectivity to lifeline infrastructure like water and power and hospitals.
We were always prey. We were just kind of surviving at the appetite of our predators, and they’re getting more aggressive.
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