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A water provider supplying 1.6 million people with drinking water has been attacked by cyber criminals, who believe they’ve illicitly accessed a different water company’s network.
South Staffordshire Water said it had “succumbed to a sophisticated cyber attack”, with the attackers managing to gain access to some of its systems.
The UK water company said that no customer data had since secured its systems had been accessed or stolen in the attack.
“Our primary focus has always been to protect our customers’ data, and we can confirm that no customer information has been accessed or stolen as a result of this incident,” the water company said in a statement.
“We have also taken steps to enhance our security measures further.”
South Staffordshire Water has not revealed the details of the cyber attack it recently experienced. The company announced that it had been targeted by criminal hackers shortly after the Clop ransomware gang claimed to have hit another water company, Thames Water. Contrarily, Thames Water says that reports they’ve been breached are a “cyber hoax”.
In a written notice published on its leak site, Clop claims to have infiltrated and spied on a water company for an extended time. If that’s the case, it’s unclear why the ransomware criminals believed they had access to the Thames Water network when, in fact, they had hacked into the South Staffordshire Water network—Clop got its UK water companies confused.
South Staffordshire Water said it had contacted the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about the incident.
Cybercriminals have increasingly targeted water companies and other critical infrastructure organisations recently.
In November, authorities indicted a group of hackers in the US for allegedly carrying out a string of cyber attacks on multiple targets, including two American water utilities.
And last year, the NCSC warned that Russian state-sponsored hackers were targeting UK energy firms in an attempt to gather intelligence and could one day launch disruptive attacks.
This shows that even large companies with robust cyber security measures can still be attack targets. Cybercriminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their methods, and businesses need to stay vigilant to protect themselves.
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