- Water utility attacks in Texas tied to notorious Sandworm
- Other recent breaches on water systems linked to China, Iran
When Mike Cypert got the call that utilities in remote Texas communities were being hacked, he raced across his office to unplug the computer that ran his city’s water system.
Hale Center is a dusty, cotton-growing burg of 2,000 about five hours drive northwest of Dallas. After the alert from a software vendor in January, Cypert, the city manager, said he found thousands of attempts to breach Hale Center’s firewall, some coming from an internet address that traced back to St. Petersburg, Russia.
Within minutes of the discovery, Cypert said he reported the episode to agents from the FBI and US Department of Homeland Security, who were already looking into related incidents in nearby Texas towns. One of the hacks caused a water tank in another city to overflow.
Bloomberg Technology
By Jake Bleiberg
April 19, 2024