DEF CON expands hacker testing to water utilities and other critical infrastructure

DEF CON, the world's largest hacking conference, is broadening its critical infrastructure protection program. The Franklin project, previously limited to examining vulnerabilities in election systems, will now cover other vital facilities, including water utilities. The announcement came from DEF CON founder Jeff Moss.

According to Moss, the success of the Voting Village, where security experts spent years stress-testing election equipment, prompted organizers to apply this approach to a wider range of systems. Hackers gathered at DEF CON will now get the chance to search for weaknesses in infrastructure that directly affects people's daily lives, starting with water supply systems.

The initiative stands out because such vulnerabilities have traditionally been the domain of government agencies and specialized regulators. Bringing independent security researchers into the analysis of these systems could significantly improve their resilience to attacks, but it also raises questions about coordination between the hacker community and official oversight bodies.

The Franklin project, named after one of the U.S. founding fathers, has already produced practical results. Reports prepared by Voting Village participants have repeatedly led to fixes for identified flaws in election infrastructure. Now the same methodology will be applied to other critical sectors.

Moss emphasized that bringing the entire DEF CON into this work is a natural continuation of what was started. The event's scale, which draws thousands of security professionals, allows for a broad audit of systems that might otherwise receive insufficient attention. Which facilities beyond water utilities will be included in the program's focus has not yet been specified by organizers.