Over the last month, or so, there has been a spate of cyber attacks against our nation’s infrastructure, culminating in a series of attacks a variety of water distribution networks causing shutdowns of several cities’ water supply, primarily in Minnesota, but spread also across seven States.

It’s not like these attacks came out of the blue, though. Ever since Colonial Pipeline, the executive management teams of utilities—of all private enterprises, come to that—have been on clear notice that well that cyber attacks were a thing; they would occur; and by the success of that attack, they were encouraged by Colonial’s—at then-President Joe Biden’s (D) pressure in his own abject meekness in front of Russia—weak-kneed payment of the demanded ransomware, matched by Biden’s surrender to Russia regarding Nord Stream 2.

And yet, these latest attacks occurred and successfully shut down those physical networks.

The failure of these management teams is reprehensible, given their apparent cavalier attitude—criminally negligent attitude, in my opinion—toward cyber security and securing their networks against cyber intrusion, cyber vandalism, cyber-instigated shutdown. This lack of effort by those managers should result in stern sanction, including jail, against them.

Their decision to not bother with any serious security measures is a failure of their fiduciary duty toward their shareholders. More than that, their failure, especially in the water distribution cases, puts their customers who depend on them for water at serious risk. Above even that, their negligence represents a threat to our nation’s security. The one is criminal, if proven, and the others are unpatriotic and especially unacceptable.

And yet, to date, no one is being looked at for sanction or even civil liability.