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Major US water and wastewater company American Water has revealed that it had shut down a number of its systems following a cyber attack.
The company is the largest publicly traded water utility company in the US, supplying services to over 14 million people. It manages over 500 water and wastewater systems in roughly 1,700 communities across the US.
On Thursday (3 October), the company said in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it had detected unauthorised activity on its network, which it determined to be a “cyber security incident”.
“Upon learning of this activity, the company immediately activated its incident response protocols and third-party cyber security experts to assist with containment and mitigation activities and to investigate the nature and scope of the incident. The company also promptly notified law enforcement and is coordinating fully with them,” the company said in the 8-K filing.
The company said that it believes that “none of its water or wastewater facilities or operations have been negatively impacted by this incident”, adding that it expects there to be no material impact.
In a statement on its website seen by media, American Water said it also disabled its online customer service portal, MyWater, leading to billing being paused. A spokesperson speaking with BleepingComputer said that customers will not be charged late fees during this period.
However, during attempts to access this statement, Cyber Daily noted that American Water’s website was inaccessible due to a 403 forbidden error. It is unclear if this directly result from the cyber attack or if the company disabled access.
The current nature of the cyber attack is unknown. Cyber Daily will provide an update as this story develops.
The attack on American Water comes after it was discovered that a Chinese state-sponsored threat actor had been present on the networks of several critical infrastructure providers for as long as five years and that they had been targeting water and wastewater systems.
Following an FBI takedown of the threat group’s botnet, the Five Eyes alliance revealed that the Volt Typhoon state-sponsored hacking group may have had access to critical infrastructure providers’ IT networks for at least five years.
Just the month after, a joint letter written by US Environmental Protection Agency administrator Michael Regan and national security advisor Jake Sullivan presented to all US governors warned the government of the danger that crippling cyber attacks on critical infrastructure can have, adding that they are already happening, particularly on water providers.
“Disabling cyber attacks are striking water and wastewater systems throughout the United States,” the letter said.
“These attacks have the potential to disrupt the critical lifeline of clean and safe drinking water, as well as impose significant costs on affected communities.”
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