Of Unitronics PLCs in Water Sector

• •CISA reports active exploitation of Unitronics PLCs in U.S. water facilities.
• •Affected systems include critical components for water treatment and monitoring.
• •CISA recommends immediate password changes and multifactor authentication.

CISA has reported of Unitronics programmable logic controllers (PLCs) in U.S. Cyber threat actors are targeting these PLCs, which are critical for controlling water and wastewater treatment processes. The affected municipality's water authority has taken the system offline and switched to manual operations, ensuring no risk to drinking water. The exploitation likely stems from poor password security and internet exposure. CISA recommends changing default passwords and implementing multifactor authentication to secure these systems. The specific PLC involved is the Unitronics Vision Series, which includes a Human Machine Interface (HMI). This incident is part of a broader concern regarding cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the water sector, highlighted by recent NIST guidelines. The situation remains under close observation as CISA continues to monitor the threat landscape.