By Ed Eisenstein
For the past 30 years, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) attacks on American infrastructure have been noted and recognized as a dangerous vulnerability. Now, in 2026, America is experiencing attacks on its water systems by hackers from foreign nations.
Generations of leaders have been warned that such attacks are imminent and must be fixed.
Decades of warnings and recommendations were tabled. Top exercises and training sessions have been provided to—please, for the love of God — fix these vulnerabilities.
Leaders who do not care to know about technology and have ignored those warnings are the cause of a significant infrastructure problem in the United States. People who called themselves leaders have put their friends instead of qualified individuals in significant positions to manage those systems
Even in my particular case, they replaced me with a leader who had absolutely no idea about technology and, over the last several years, has reinvited vulnerability back into that very network I spent eight years securing
These morons and wisenheimers think they know better by saying this technology issue is not a priority. Yet, year after year, our senior citizens are taken out just as hard as our American infrastructure by foreign hackers who laugh at us.
Based on the trajectory of these types of attacks, both on core American infrastructure as well as its citizens, without any protection by the federal government, are a clear roadway to significant fallout in the near future.
In other, more sophisticated countries, there are federal firewalls that citizens need to adhere to when they go online. In the United States, we feel that’s an invasion of privacy and, therefore, leave the door wide open for everyone to fend for themselves.
It may very well be too late at this point to stop what I perceive is coming: a multilevel cyberattack on both the core American infrastructure, the financial system, and citizens simultaneously. Such an attack will be followed by either a chemical or physical attack by a combination of foreign nations that have teamed up against the United States.
The newly formed Department of War is important for this country, although a larger emphasis on cyber protection needs to be discussed and implemented.
Ed Eisenstein is the chief executive officer of United Network Associates, Inc., a provider of cybersecurity and cloud services based in Farmingdale.