(FixThisNation.com) – Bipartisan lawmakers have expressed concerns about the cyberattacks on water systems in the western United States in drought-stricken areas. They are now pushing for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to provide answers about the incident and inform them about the actions they would be taking to prevent another such attack in the future.
Reps. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) sent a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in which they called for answers and a briefing regarding the January cyberattack that had been launched against the water system in Muleshoe, Texas. The hack had also resulted in a small town’s water system in Texas overflowing. Within two hours, tens of thousands of gallons of water had been sent to the water tower in the town causing it to overflow.
The attack is one of the three on a small town in the rural Texas Panhandle which is connected to a Russian hacktivist group.
Hale Center city manager Mike Cypert noted that in the last four days, there had been 37,000 attempts to log into the firewall of the city. However, all of the attempts had been unsuccessful as the city had “unplugged” the system and had proceeded with manual operations.
In Muleshoe, where there is a population of around 5,000, the system also had to be manually run by city officials after the hackers had taken over causing the system to overflow.
In the letter to Mayorkas, the lawmakers pointed out that Mandiant, a cybersecurity company had attributed the attack to Sandworm, which is said to be connected to the GRU, a Russian spy agency.
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