The FBI has issued an urgent warning after hackers targeted municipal water systems in at least seven states over the past week, prompting concerns about the vulnerability of critical water infrastructure across the nation.
NBC News reports that the FBI and the EPA released a joint public service announcement warning water and wastewater utilities nationwide that malicious cyber actors are attempting to disrupt critical water infrastructure. Water utilities in multiple states have reported cybersecurity incidents, the agencies said, and some attacks have degraded water operations. The warning follows a breach in Minnesota, where hackers targeted more than 30 municipal water facilities in an attack.
Emily Zimmer, a spokesperson for Minnesota’s information technology services agency, said Thursday there was no indication the breaches had contaminated any municipal water supplies. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a separate alert saying some larger attacks on water infrastructure had led to boil water notices and sustained manual operations, though it did not disclose locations.
Neither Minnesota officials nor the federal government have publicly attributed the activity in Minnesota to a specific threat actor. The FBI and EPA also did not identify who was responsible for the breaches reported in the other six states.
President Donald Trump addressed the Minnesota attack in remarks to reporters Friday at Camp David, criticizing state leadership and Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in the 2024 election. “I think I blame it on Minnesota because they’re grossly incompetent,” Trump said. “I would blame it on Minnesota and the governor, the corrupt governor of Minnesota. They like to say, ‘Oh, it’s Iran.’ Iran should be so lucky. Iran’s got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota.”
Walz responded: “Trump knows exactly who is responsible for this attack, and knows that other states were hit too. This is what modern warfare looks like, and it further illustrates there’s no plan to win a war with Iran.”
The federal advisory focused on the tactics used in the attacks rather than attribution. The hackers targeted certain brands of control systems used by municipal water utilities, the FBI and EPA said, though officials urged operators of all systems to take security precautions.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources sent its own bulletin earlier in the week to water contacts across the state, saying intelligence officials believed Wisconsin systems might be susceptible to connections from malicious cyber actors. “This leads us to believe that the cyber threat is ongoing in Wisconsin and requires immediate action to prevent potentially serious impacts to our systems,” the bulletin stated.
A department spokesperson said intelligence officials had not confirmed that any Wisconsin systems were compromised but were concerned about potential susceptibility. Wisconsin’s warning said Minnesota had reported that hackers managed to reduce system pressures, which in several incidents triggered alarms and prompted law enforcement responses.
Zimmer disputed that characterization: “Minnesota has not reported that threat actors lowered pressure across multiple water systems or that pressure changes prompted a law enforcement response.”
Read more at NBC News here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of AI, free speech, and online censorship.