Hackers infiltrated the corporate-side of a utility that provides water to about 1.3 million folks within the United Kingdom. However, the obvious information breach might not have been the one the cyber-criminals had been aiming for.

Ransomware gang ClOP (beforehand answerable for one in every of 2021’s greatest hacks) claimed to have infiltrated Thames Water, the United Kingdom’s largest consuming water utility, on Monday, based on a report from Bleeping Computer. However, the utility denied any breach of its system. Meanwhile, one other UK utility, South Staffordshire Water, confirmed it was attacked.

Thames Water companies 15 million folks, greater than ten occasions the dimensions of South Staffordshire. So, though any assault on a public utility is clearly unhealthy, there’s a giant distinction between the dimensions of what ClOP claimed and what utilities copped to.

Hackers’ Claims Against Utilities

South Staffordshire PLC (the dad or mum firm of South Staffordshire Water) admitted its company IT community had been accessed by hackers, in a public statement revealed Monday. However, SSW didn’t point out that they’d been contacted for ransom. “We are experiencing disruption to our corporate IT network and our teams are working to resolve this as quickly as possible. It is important to stress that our customer service teams are operating as usual,” the corporate wrote. The water supplier additional claimed that “this incident has not affected our ability to supply safe water.”

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Aside from the corporate statements, proof of the reported cyber-criminal confusion appeared in screenshots that Bleeping Computer revealed from ClOP’s Tor website. The cyber gang reportedly wrote that that they had breached and “spent months in” Thames Water’s system. However, to again up their hack success, they posted e mail lists clearly related to South Staffordshire Water (not Thames) workers and revealed leaked paperwork, one in every of which was explicitly addressed to SSW.

Yes, not noticing that you simply’ve hacked the improper utility looks like a foolish mistake to make, however something is feasible. Another factor that may be potential is that each utilities had been truly focused in cyber assaults, and Thames both didn’t discover or didn’t admit its personal safety failing. Note: Thames Water did point out some service disruption on their website on Monday, however that was later attributed to a burst pipe and will simply have been unrelated.

Neither South Staffordshire Water, nor Thames Water instantly responded to Gizmodo’s request for remark.

What Are The Implications?

Any safety breach or assault on a important public service or utility is rightfully unsettling. Last yr, a cyber-attacker tried to poison a Florida Town’s water provide, and revealed simply how weak utilities’ safety protections could be. Though the hackers on this case might have fumbled, it’s nonetheless fairly scary that they had been in a position to disrupt any perform of a water supplier in any respect.

Security consultants have lengthy warned of the chance that the vitality grid, water provide, and different primary societal helps could be vulnerable to hacks. And sadly, the issue would possibly be getting worse. “Although this attack appears to have been relatively benign, it does set a worrying precedent,” Jamie Akhtar, CEO of safety startup CyberSmart, instructed the BBC.