The FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency warned that hackers are actively trying to disrupt municipal water systems, after cyberattacks hit utilities in at least seven states last week and knocked out monitoring and control at more than 30 Minnesota water facilities.
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The joint public service announcement said malicious cyber actors gained remote access to internet-facing devices, altered IP addresses and passwords, and degraded operations at water and wastewater utilities nationwide. The agencies did not name the affected states or identify a culprit.
The alert followed an attack on Minnesota’s water infrastructure that a law enforcement official said carried the hallmarks of Iranian-backed hacking, though the state has stopped short of formally assigning blame. A spokesperson for Minnesota’s information technology agency said there was no indication the breaches contaminated any drinking water supply.
President Donald Trump was less cautious. Speaking to reporters Friday at Camp David, he pinned responsibility squarely on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and state leadership rather than Tehran.
“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.”
Federal officials say the threat is real regardless of who is to blame. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said some larger attacks had triggered boil-water notices and forced utilities into sustained manual operations. Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources warned that intelligence officials believe systems there “may be susceptible to connections from malicious cyber actors,” calling the threat “ongoing” and demanding “immediate action.”
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Minnesota officials disputed Wisconsin’s characterization of the fallout, with agency spokesperson Emily Zimmer denying that hackers lowered water pressure across multiple systems or that any pressure changes prompted a law enforcement response.
The breach comes days after federal agencies warned that Iran-backed hackers were targeting American infrastructure amid rising military tensions between Washington and Tehran. U.S. intelligence officials have said Iran attempted to target water systems as recently as 2023 and is increasingly capable of aggressive cyberattacks.
Bryson Bort, founder of the cybersecurity firm Scythe and an industrial control systems expert, said the disclosures should serve as a wake-up call.
“We need to be prepared,” Bort said. “Attacks like this illustrate that there are folks who mean the U.S. harm today.”
Federal officials are urging utilities to pull programmable logic controllers off the open internet, secure them behind firewalls, adopt strong passwords and restrict which devices can communicate with control systems.
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