Afederal lordly juryis indict a 22 - year - old cat over accusations that he tamper with a public water system . Dude allegedly hacked into a computer organization that controls a rural weewee utility in Ellsworth County , Kansas , then mess with the virtual processes that bear upon procedures for cleaning and disinfecting drinking water .
On March 31 , Wyatt Travnichek was charged with one count of tampering with a public piddle system and one count of reckless scathe to a protect computer during unauthorized admission . If convict , he ’ll confront up to 25 years in prison and $ 500,000 in fines .
The tarradiddle is pretty wild . Travnichek actually worked at the water territorial dominion , which services more than 1,500 retail customers and 10 sweeping customer in eight Kansas county , from January 2018 to January 2019 . Part of his role was to virtually supervise its body of water flora after hours by remotely lumber into the district ’s computer organization , so in a sensation he was just doing his sometime job .
As if we didn’t have enough risks to drinking water to manage.Photo: Tony Gutierrez (AP)
The Department of Justice alleges that he log on with the intention to harm , though gratefully , according to Cyberscoop , no one was harmed . According to the indictment , Travnichek “ accessed a protected computer without dominance , ” then remotely log on and “ performed activities that shut down processes at the readiness which regard the facility ’s cleanup and disinfecting procedures . ”
“ By illegally tampering with a public drinking body of water system , the suspect threaten the safety and wellness of an entire residential district , ” Lance Ehrig , Special Agent in Charge of EPA ’s Criminal Investigation Division in Kansas , said in a statement . “ EPA and its law enforcement mate are committed to upholding the laws plan to protect our drinking H2O systems from injury or menace of harm . Today ’s indictment sends a vindicated message that individual who intentionally violate these laws will be vigorously engage . ”
https://gizmodo.com/the-crisis-at-a-florida-wastewater-reservoir-show-the-r-1846619260
What ’s even more bonkers than this guy ’s actions , though , was that he was capable to carry them out . But it ’s also scarce the only instance of decisive utility base face a cybersecurity breaches . In February , a hackerbroke into the computing machine systemfor a water public utility company in Florida and tried to poison people by upping the H2O ’s sodium hydrated oxide substance to toxic layer . It later come out that the system did n’t have basic internet protections — not even a firewall or strong word security . In December , when cyber intruder hack numerous administration agencies and technical school companies , SolarWinds software , they alsoput malwareonto several galvanizing and crude oil company ’ reckoner systems . A write up unloosen Monday also shows that Connecticut ’s energy , natural gas , and water utilities have seen an uptick in phishing and malware threats since the covid-19 pandemic start in early 2020 .
This comes on top of the physical subject with U.S. base , of which there are many . H2O system are already under threat frompollution , poorly maintained pipe , andaging infrastructure . Climate change will only exacerbate many of these job . Travnichek has n’t yet been convict of anything , but regardless , let ’s hope water utility learn from this and install some protective measure . Because frankly , we do n’t need any more risks to boozing water .
Computer securityData securityDrinking waterLaw , CrimeSOLARWINDS
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