NSA: Foreign Hackers Are Targeting Water Infrastructure
Those within the drinking water and wastewater industry know just how critical water infrastructure is to our wellbeing. And, according to a warning from the country’s highest-level intelligence agencies, so do international hackers.
“The National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) … warned that foreign hackers are attempting to target U.S. critical infrastructure,” The Hill reported. “The agencies specifically warned that internet-connected operational technology (OT) assets, used throughout U.S. defense systems, were often the targets of malicious cyber actors attempting to hit critical infrastructure, such as systems providing water.”
The agencies are asking water systems to take immediate action to protect against a range of new attacks they’ve identified, including email phishing schemes to access infrastructure and ransomware attacks on systems. They cited a recently thwarted attack against Israeli water systems as an example of the rise in this threat.
“Israel … thwarted a cyberattack on control systems at water facilities, a senior government official said … while warning of the dangers of escalating conflicts in cyberspace,” Cyberscoop reported of the attack. “The ‘synchronized and organized attack’ on civilian infrastructure was aimed at disrupting the industrial computers that underpin Israeli water facilities… Damage could have been done to those systems if Israeli authorities hadn’t foiled the attack.”
As water systems become more decentralized and hacking schemes become more sophisticated, it’s likely that infrastructure personnel will have to implement more robust protections. It’s unlikely that the digital attack attempts will stop any time soon.
“The agencies recommended that critical infrastructure organizations take steps to protect their OT assets from attack, such as through creating a resilience plan to protect and restore systems in the case of debilitating cyberattack, along with implementing a system monitoring program,” per The Hill.
For more information on protective measures for water infrastructure, visit Water Online’s Resiliency Solutions Center.