Hacker tries to dump chemical into Florida city’s water

An unknown hacker broke into a Florida city’s water supply and briefly pushed levels of a potentially dangerous additive up 100-fold, local law enforcement said Monday.

The hack was noticed quickly and reversed immediately, so no one in the Tampa suburb of Oldsmar was ever in danger, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.

But it underscored the broader threat of cyberattacks to US infrastructure, he added.

A computer operator for the Oldsmar water treatment system noticed Friday afternoon someone remotely accessing the plant’s controls, Gualtieri said.