Hackers attacked a wastewater treatment plant in Indiana on Friday night, prompting plant managers to call in maintenance workers to investigate the suspicious activity, a local official told Reuters. CNN.
A Russian-linked hacker group claimed responsibility. The same group claimed responsibility for a series of hacker attacks against water facilities in Texas earlier this year.
“We were targeted and we were not compromised,” Jim Ankrum, general manager of Tipton Municipal Utilities (TMU), told CNN. TMU provides electricity, water and wastewater treatment to Tipton, a town of 5,000 people about 40 miles north of Indianapolis.
“TMU experienced minimal disruptions and remained operational throughout,” Ankrum added.
He also highlighted that federal authorities are investigating the incident. He referred further questions to the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
A spokesperson for the agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
On Saturday (20), Russian-speaking hackers posted a video on social media claiming credit for a cyberattack on a TMU wastewater treatment plant.
Ankrum highlighted to CNN who did not watch the video but emphasized that the plant continued to operate during the cyber attack.
This would be the latest move by a group of Russian-speaking hackers to target water facilities in small American towns. A cyberattack in January, claimed by the same group, caused a tank at a facility in Muleshoe, Texas, to overflow.
Authorities warn against criminals
U.S. officials have warned that the nation's water systems need to bolster their defenses against persistent threats from criminals.
Cyberattacks are hitting water and wastewater systems “across the United States” and water facilities must improve their defenses against the threat, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned in a letter last month to state authorities.
US cybersecurity company Mandiant last week linked the Telegram channel where hackers claimed responsibility for the Muleshoe and TMU attacks with other hacking actions carried out by a notorious unit of the Russian military intelligence agency GRU.
It is unclear, however, whether other Russian-speaking hackers or the GRU itself are behind the individual attacks claimed on the Telegram channel, according to Mandiant.
In the series of cyberattacks on the water sector, they appear to have opportunistically targeted industrial equipment that, at least in some cases, was accessible online.
The video posted by the hackers purported to show them using software that handles equipment that aerates and moves fluids at the Tipton wastewater treatment plant, according to Ron Fabela, an industrial cybersecurity expert.
“The actions taken by the threat actor are amateurish and would represent a minor inconvenience to the plant operators”, highlighted Fabela, CEO of Infinity Squared Group, a consultancy company, to CNN.
Source: CNN Brasil
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