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There’s a specific fear related to cybersecurity that’s always felt more like a Hollywood movie than real life: an attack on critical infrastructure. The movie I’m thinking of is Leave the World Behind, a haunting thriller about a cyberattack that knocks out communication infrastructure and presumably starts a war. Back in the real world, however, there’s already a war going on in Iran, and the cyberattacks are targeting small-town America’s water systems. 

All signs point to Iran as the culprit of a massive cyberattack affecting water systems in at least a dozen states across the country. The damage so far has been minimal — some flooding here, some boil-water notices there — but the implications of another country using computers to mess with our drinking water are pretty dire. The situation is even more anxiety-inducing once you know how poorly protected much of America’s critical infrastructure is, according to Vox’s Sara Herschander. In her latest piece, she asks bluntly: “How scared should you be?” 

I’ve decided I’m scared enough to rewatch Leave the World Behind and reconsider my family’s need for a “bug-out bag.”

—Adam Clark Estes, senior correspondent

Within a few hours, dozens of other Minnesota cities discovered that their water and wastewater utilities, too, had been compromised, most likely as part of a massive Iranian cyberattack, the kind that US officials have been warning about since the war began.

At least a dozen states have been affected by the attack, which briefly led to a flurry of small-town service disruptions, boil-water notices, and local flooding. Water wells, dams, sewers, and pipelines are some of America’s oldest and creakiest pieces of infrastructure, built long before the internet existed, and certainly long before AI made hacking much easier. While you may assume most hackers are in it for the money or for data, some have targeted critical infrastructure like water systems or energy grids in ploys for control or disruption — or worse still, as acts of war.

And, as last week’s attacks show, the nation’s water system is woefully unprepared. But how worried should you be that the very infrastructure that keeps our water taps running is, apparently, hackable?

Quite worried, indeed.

Read the full story»

A few of the most interesting and important news events in the tech world this week:

• AI agents won’t stop going rogue. Anthropic agents used fake identities to hack real people in a recent UK study, while Meta revealed that its AI agents hacked another company during testing. This is after OpenAI’s agents hacked into HuggingFace, a platform for AI developers. This has all gone down in the past two weeks, by the way.
• Four top Google researchers quit to build self-improving AI. The new company, Discovery Loop, will leverage a concept known as “recursive self-improvement” to create an AI that can discover new drugs, hardware, or scientific breakthroughs without human intervention. What could go wrong?
• LinkedIn wants its users to stop using AI so much. Everyone’s favorite work-themed social network is taking on AI slop. Last week, it was with the addition of a “seems like AI slop” button that lets you report content that seems suspicious, and soon LinkedIn will use this to tell you if you sound like a bot. 
• A SpaceX rocket crashed into the moon and created a new crater. It happened the day after the company’s disastrous quarterly earnings report, the first since it went public.

And a few great stories from my colleagues at Vox:

• The people who got rich disrupting your life want to help. Silicon Valley’s newest billionaires have a plan to save the world.
• The FOMO of not seeing The Odyssey in 70 mm IMAX. One source told Vox, “I saw it in a regular theater, and I feel like a loser.”
• How video games can make young men feel less alone. There’s untapped political potential in gaming.

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