Submitting Campus
Prescott
Department
Global Security & Intelligence Studies
Document Type
Article
Publication/Presentation Date
8-13-2026
Abstract/Description
The recent cyberattacks targeting municipal water facilities across multiple U.S. states serve as another reminder that America’s critical infrastructure remains under constant attack. According to the FBI, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), attackers successfully compromised operational technology (OT) devices, including programmable logic controllers (PLCs), by exploiting Internet-connected systems, changing administrator credentials, and disrupting normal operations. Fortunately, local operators responded quickly by isolating affected systems, restoring backups, and preventing what could have become a significant public health crisis.
While these incidents focused on water treatment facilities, they represent a much larger national security issue. The United States relies on eighteen critical infrastructure sectors that support every aspect of daily life, including communications, energy, transportation, healthcare, financial services, emergency services, chemical facilities, food and agriculture, dams, defense industrial base, government facilities, nuclear reactors, information technology, manufacturing, commercial facilities, and water and wastewater systems. Disruption of any one of these sectors has the potential to create cascading consequences throughout the economy and society.
Publication Title
Security Magazine
Publisher
BNP Media
Scholarly Commons Citation
Saquella, A. (2026). Protecting America’s Critical Infrastructure: A Shared Responsibility in an Era of Escalating Cyber Threats. Security Magazine Retrieved from https://commons.erau.edu/publication/2489
Additional Information
Please access the version-of-record published in Security Magazine here.