Cyber attacks targeted 30 water systems across Minnesota over the last couple of days. The incidents are raising massive security concerns.
Metro State cybersecurity professor Faisal Kalim spoke with Vineeta Sawkar on the WCCO Morning News and said the attacks were malicious, and directed at operation technology.
"OT deals with something called the industrial control system that actually controls these water pumps, wells, power sectors, and so on," says Kalim.
Kalim said no water was contaminated, but it could have been much more severe.
"The reason why this attack did not cause chaos was because of some of the basic training, the operators were able to switch everything to manual mode or manual control," Kalim explains. "Otherwise, it could have been dangerous."
Kalim also talked about how hackers breached the systems.
"What we now know is that this was not just simply a collection of equipment failures," he explains. "The officials are now categorizing this attack as an unauthorized access with malicious intent, directed at something called the operational technology."
Following the breach, Minnesota IT Services (MNIT) immediately activated the state's cybersecurity incident response capabilities after the attacks.
The investigation remains active, and MNIT says they continue to assess affected systems.
