- Report reveals hackers have disrupted UK water suppliers on five occasions since Jan 2024
- The safe water supply was not affected
- Geopolitical instability means critical infrastructure could be at serious risk
New reports have revealed five cyberattacks have targeted British drinking water facilities since January 2024 – a record number in any two year period.
Reports of these incidents were obtained by The Record using Freedom of Information requests to the watchdog – the Drinking Water Inspectorate. The regulator is only required by NIS regulations to report incidents that actually result in disruption – so the number of attempted attacks is likely to be much higher.
Although these didn’t directly affect the supply of safe water, they were successful in disrupting critical organizations – painting a disturbing picture of the potential threat malicious hackers pose to our society.
Potential harm to human life
As political violence increasingly manifests through cyberattacks, critical infrastructure is targeted more than ever, but hackers aren’t all state actors.
In fact, a ransomware attack targeted Southern Water in 2024, asking for over £3m as a payment for leaked data in a seemingly purely financially motivated attack – meaning organizations need to beware of attacks from all angles.
The Canadian Centre for Cybersecurity also recently warned hacktivists had been discovered tampering with online systems that control water, energy, and agricultural facilities – disruption to any of which could be deadly, and a simultaneous attack could bring daily life to a halt across the country.
“Make no mistake, any attack targeted at critical infrastructure is intended to gain media attention, disrupt public services, potentially harm human life, and should be taken seriously,” says Jason Shea, principal advisor of grid security at Optiv.
“We often pay more attention to advanced nation-state actors and surrounding geological tensions, and we lose sight of the less sophisticated and opportunistic attacks. These should not be taken lightly.”
Geopolitical instability threatens to expose vulnerabilities across the landscape, and small scale attacks like these are testing the waters (literally) to see just how well prepared the infrastructure is, and how much it could be disrupted in a large-scale attack.
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