Iranian hackers suspected in cyberattack against over 30 Minnesota water systems - report

Iran is suspected of being behind a cyberattack targeting over 30 municipal water systems in Minnesota this week, according to The Washington Post, citing unnamed US officials. The attack occurred on Sunday and Monday, prompting a response from government and municipal agencies, but no instructions for residents' drinking water use. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned of a significant increase in cyber threats targeting programmable logic controllers in the Water and Wastewater Systems Sector. Experts note similar attacks since the war with Iran began, with Iran aiming for psychological effects rather than destruction.

Iran is suspected of being behind a cyberattack targeting over 30 municipal water systems in Minnesota this week, according to The Washington Post, citing unnamed US officials. The attack took place on Sunday and Monday, according to Minnesota IT Services, prompting a response from government and municipal agencies, but no instructions from affected cities for residents' drinking water use. Later that week, on Thursday, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned of a significant increase in cyber threat actors targeting programmable logic controllers in the Water and Wastewater Systems Sector. Joe Slowik, director of threat research for Dataminr, told the Post that similar attacks have occurred in water and energy systems across the United States since the beginning of the war with Iran. Kurt Gaudette, head of intelligence for Dragos, noted that the cyberattacks had generally been against 'very low-hanging fruit' - vulnerable systems such as small utilities which used default passwords and whose controllers were open to the internet. Iran's goal, Alex Orleans, head of threat intelligence at Sublime Security, told the Post, seemed to be the psychological effect rather than outright sabotage and destruction, with two main targets: the American people, to turn sentiment against the war, and the Iranian regime itself, to show contribution to the war effort.