Florida water agency latest to confirm cyber incident as feds warn of nation
A ransomware gang hit Florida's St. Johns River Water Management District as CISA warned of IRGC-linked CyberAv3ngers attacks on exposed Unitronics water-sector PLCs.
The St. Johns River Water Management District, which oversees Florida drinking-water supply planning, confirmed suspicious activity in its IT environment and said containment measures were implemented; a ransomware gang claimed the attack and shared samples of stolen data. Separately, CISA, FBI, NSA, EPA and Israel's INCD warned that IRGC-affiliated CyberAv3ngers are actively compromising Israeli-made Unitronics Vision Series PLCs in the water sector using default credentials since at least November 22. The group, motivated by opposition to Israel-linked products, defaces controller interfaces and could cause deeper cyber-physical effects. Shadowserver found at least 539 Unitronics PLC instances still exposed online, and CNN reported fewer than 10 US water facilities faced recent attacks.
- Florida water agency confirmed attack; ransomware gang claimed it with stolen data
- CyberAv3ngers tied to Iran's IRGC compromise Unitronics PLCs via default credentials
- Attackers deface controller UI and could cause cyber-physical effects
- 539 Unitronics PLC instances still publicly exposed worldwide
- CISA briefed Congress that fewer than 10 water facilities were attacked
- ATT&CK
- T1190 Exploit Public-Facing ApplicationT1078.001 Default AccountsT1491.002 External DefacementT1486 Data Encrypted for Impact
- Vendors
- Unitronics
- Products
- Unitronics Vision Series PLC
- Threat actors
- CyberAv3ngersIRGC
From the original article
3 min read at therecord.media
A regulatory agency in Florida that oversees the long-term supply of drinking water confirmed that it responded to a cyberattack over the last week as the top cybersecurity agencies in the U. S. warned of foreign attacks on water utilities.
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