Cyber attack on US Water Station

According to two people familiar with the investigations, the federal government is looking into a number of hacks that it believes were carried out by a cyber group connected to the Iranian government against American water facilities that were utilizing Israeli-made technology.

One of the hacks garnered media attention on Saturday when the Cyber Av3ngers, a group with ties to Tehran, took credit for attacking a Pennsylvania water authority. According to the two people who were given anonymity to discuss information that was not yet public, the government is aware of and investigating a "single digit" number of facilities that have been impacted nationwide.

The individuals claim that none of the hacks caused any major disruption, but cyber experts who are aware of the Pennsylvania incident say that the activity seems to be intended to incite people's concerns about using Israeli devices.

Since the most recent conflict between Israel and the militant group Hamas, which Tehran has long supported, Washington has been bracing itself for increased cyber breaches from Iran. It also coincides with a wave of recent Iranian proxy group drone and rocket attacks on US troops in the Middle East.

Generally speaking, water facilities are one of the most vulnerable aspects of the American infrastructure, frequently because smaller utilities lack the resources and staff to address the problem. In an effort to solve this issue, the Biden administration has increased its collaborations with private companies operating in the water industry.

Authorities claim that in the hack on Saturday, a group known as Cyber Av3ngers—which they believe may have connections to the Iranian government—broke into and disabled a digital control panel manufactured by Unitronics, an Israeli-owned business, at the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa, outside of Pittsburgh. The control panel's digital display screen, which regulates water pressure automatically, was also taken over by the group, and they changed it to say: "Every equipment 'Made in Israel' is Cyber Av3ngers legal target."

Water authority general manager Robert Bible told POLITICO on Monday that the authority has not experienced any service disruptions at the affected station, which serves 1,200 people, and that attackers could not change the chemicals used in drinking water if they had control over the Unitronics devices.

The Pennsylvania State Police communications office director, Lt. Adam Reed, confirmed on Tuesday that federal authorities had taken over the investigation into the Aliquippa incident. Bible said he has been in constant communication with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency since the attack last weekend. These organizations are among those investigating the case.

Bible warned that there had been no real impact, even though the utility is manually running the water pumps at the affected station while the authorities look into the incident. "Everything is operating as it should," he stated.

A request for comments regarding the attacks was not answered by the FBI or the DHS. In a late-night advisory, CISA stated that it was "responding to active exploitation" of Unitronics devices in the wastewater and water industries. The alert did not specify how many cases outside of Aliquippa it is responding to or who the agency believes is behind the hacks. It did state that the devices' vulnerability to the internet and their use of weak passwords were probably how the hackers gained access to them.