FBI investigates shutdown of Illinois water pump

Illinois State Police, Department of Homeland Security not saying is shutdown of water pump was due to failure or computer hackers.

A water pump failure doesn’t always catch the FBI’s attention. But this failure is different. It appears hackers, possibly from Russia, managed to remotely shut down a water pump at the utility near Springfield, Ill.

State police investigators tell Reuters that hackers broke into the network using stolen credentials from a software company.

Illinois State Police aren’t commenting, and Homeland Security won’t say if the pump failure was the result of computer hacking. Utility employees say the district has multiple water pumps, so there was never a danger, and no break in service. If this was the result of computer hacking, it would be the first known foreign cyber attack on an industrial system on U.S. soil.

This story is part of Federal News Radio’s daily Cybersecurity Update. For more cybersecurity news, click here.

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