Authorities say the country’s dams, stadiums, traffic controls and power grids can be accessed by anyone with simple passwords or no passwords at all, NBC News reported.
New York U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the 2013 hack of the by an Iranian computer hack was a "frightening new frontier" of cybercrime that's "scary to think about."
Hamid Firoozi, the Iranian hacker charged earlier this month with breaking into the control system of the Bowman Avenue Dam in Rye Brook, New York, reportedly used a simple, legal search engine that surfs for and identifies unguarded control systems online. New York U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the 2013 hack was “scary to think about.”
Authorities believe the threat of more attacks is growing exponentially, and have been warning America's private sector to adapt, but businesses have been slow to respond.
About 6.4 billion devices and control systems will be connected to the Internet in 2016, a 30 percent spike over 2015, according to a new report. By 2020, nearly 21 billion will be online.