US government says Iran-linked hackers are disrupting American water and energy providers
The U.S. government has issued an alert warning that Iranian state-backed hackers are targeting industrial control systems at American water and energy providers. These cyberattacks aim to disrupt critical infrastructure by manipulating programmable logic controllers.
Why it matters
The targeting of critical infrastructure represents a significant escalation in geopolitical cyber warfare with potential real-world safety consequences.
The U.S. government is warning that Iranian state-backed hackers are actively breaking in and disrupting industrial control systems at American water and energy providers. This new alert comes months after federal agencies warned of an escalation in hacking from Iranian actors amid the ongoing war.
In an advisory updated Wednesday , the FBI, the NSA, the Department of Energy, and CISA said Iranian hackers were targeting programmable logic controllers on internet-connected operational networks, allowing them to manipulate data on their displays, causing outages and disruption.
The Iranian hackers were initially discovered earlier this year to be targeting controllers made by Rockwell, but the advisory has now expanded the types of industrial control systems under attack to include products from Schneider Electric and Siemens.
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