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MARSHALL -- Marshall's municipal water systems weren't affected by cyberattacks reported in more than 30 Minnesota communities last week, Marshall Municipal Utilities staff said. But MMU water operations manager Jeff Larson said the utility is continuing to monitor the situation.
"We had a call (last) Wednesday with some of the state and federal agencies" that are investigating the attacks, Larson said. "I think everybody, cybersecurity-wise, has been on alert."
Last week, Minnesota IT Services said state, local and federal officials were investigating malicious activity targeting community water systems around Minnesota. Minnesota IT said most of the confirmed cyberattacks involved technology that utilities use to remotely monitor and control water equipment.
Larson said there wasn't a lot of detailed information available on which Minnesota cities were affected by cyberattacks on July 26 and 27. The attacks are still under investigation.
"It's more widespread than just Minnesota," Larson added.
In a July 30 public service announcement, the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency said water and wastewater utilities in at least seven states have reported malicious activity. Hackers had remotely accessed equipment through the internet, and changed the equipment's IP addresses and passwords, the announcement said.
Larson said it sounded like attackers gained access to municipal water systems through computer systems that weren't secure. In particular, he said, programmable logic controllers (PLCs) were affected.
PLCs are industrial computers that automatically control water equipment, Larson said. PLCs can do tasks like turning on a water pump when a water tower's level gets too low, or turning it off when the tower is full, he said. The automation saves utilities from needing a human operator to watch over water equipment around the clock, he said.
Just like with other kinds of computer systems, PLCs need to have strong security for internet data, including encryption and Internet Protocol (IP) access rules to control which devices are allowed to connect to the system, Larson said.
Minnesota IT said not every Minnesota community affected by the cyberattacks had disruptions to water service. Cities reporting disruptions to their water controls included Plymouth, South St. Paul and Braham, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported. The Star Tribune reported that the city of Braham was temporarily unable to fill its water tower, although the system was back online after about an hour and a half.
Larson said MMU didn't find any indication of security breaches in Marshall's water plant and systems last week. He said the utility will continue to monitor the situation, and coordinate with state and industry partners as more information becomes available.