Investigation into a cyberattack against a water treatment plan in the City of Arkansas in Kansas on Sunday was commenced by officials from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, reports SC Media.
Operations have been conducted manually following the intrusion, which involved the disruption of the water treatment facility's control systems and a ransom demand, but did not result in any data compromise, said Arkansas City Manager Randy Frazer in a statement to The Cowley Courier Traveler. Arkansas City was praised by cybersecurity experts for immediately adopting manual operations as part of its incident response plan to avoid service interruptions. Elevated cybersecurity threats against water facilities should prompt proactive best practices implementation, according to OPSWAT Vice President of Products Itay Glick.
"These include securing communication channels like email and USB devices, employing network segmentation to prevent threats from spreading into operational technology environments, and implementing strong endpoint protection," Glick added.
