A hack that flooded a small Texas town's water system in January has been linked to a shadowy Russian hacktivist group, and U.S. utilities have been targeted by foreign cyberattacks. This is the latest example of this happening.
The attack was one of three attacks on small towns in rural Texas Panhandle. Local officials said the public was not in any danger and the attempt was reported to federal authorities.
“We had 37,000 firewall login attempts in four days,” said Hale Center City Manager Mike Cypert. Hale Center is located approximately 60 miles north of Lubbock and is home to approximately 2,000 residents. He added that the hacking attempt failed because the city “turned off” the system and manually operated it.
In Muleshoe, a city of about 5,000 people in Bailey County, about 90 miles to the west, the water system was shut down and officials took over manually after hackers flooded it, City Manager Ramon Sanchez said. he told CNN. He did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press seeking comment.
“The incident was quickly addressed and resolved,” Sanchez said in a statement, according to Lubbock-based ABC affiliate KAMC-TV. “The city's water disinfection system was not affected, and the public water system or the public was not at risk.”
US cybersecurity firm Mandiant this week linked at least one of the attacks to a shadowy Russian hacktivist group, suggesting it may be working with or part of a Russian military hacking force. It was announced that there is a sex.
The group, which calls itself CyberArmyofRussia_Reborn, claimed responsibility for January attacks on water facilities in the United States and Poland, which received little attention at the time.
CyberArmyofRussia_Reborn has ties to the Russian government, which carried out low-complexity attacks against Ukraine and its allies last year, including a denial-of-service data barrage that temporarily took websites offline, according to cybersecurity researchers. This is one of the suspected groups.
Microsoft reported in December that such groups sometimes claim responsibility for attacks that were actually carried out by Kremlin military intelligence hackers.
Seipert, the Hale Center's city director, said he has turned over the information to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.
The FBI declined to comment, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a division of DHS, referred questions to the targeted cities.
In Lockney, about 40 kilometers east of Hale Center and home to about 1,500 people, the cyber attackers were stopped before they could access the town's water system, City Manager Buster Poling said.
“It didn't cause any problems other than being a nuisance,” Poling said.
Last year, CISA issued an advisory targeting facilities using Israeli equipment following the November hack of U.S. water utilities by Iranian state entities.
Vice President for National Security Ann Neuberger said in December that the attacks by Iranian hackers and another spate of ransomware attacks on the health care industry should be seen as a call to action by utilities and industries to strengthen cybersecurity. Stated.
In March, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan sent a letter to governors across the country urging them to take steps to protect water supplies, including cybersecurity assessments and planning for cyberattacks. I asked him to take the course.
“Drinking water and wastewater systems are critical infrastructure sectors of lifelines, making them attractive targets for cyberattacks, but they lack the resources and technical capacity to implement rigorous cybersecurity practices. A lot,” Regan and Sullivan wrote.
Ken Miller, Associated Press
