Illinois Water Pump: Cyber Attack or Mechanical Problem?
A Russian hacker breaks into a water plant in Illinois, taking control of the facility remotely and turning the engines on and off, eventually burning them out and disabling the plant. Sounds like a scene from an action film, and according to the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, it is fiction.
The Department of Homeland Security Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team - ICS-CERT - has released a statement asserting that the alleged attack never happened.
The FBI and ICS-CERT have collaboratively analyzed "all available data" and determined that there is no evidence the failure at the water plant was due to a cyber attack. The original analysis by the Illinois Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center claimed that the attack was made possible by first compromising login credentials and that the software vendor may have been involved. The FBI and ICS-Cert report says there is no evidence to support these claims.
The Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) software that controls the pump does not have the ability to log access to the system, so direct evidence of access isn't available.
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