The US government says hackers linked to Iran are disrupting US water and energy providers

The US government warns that Iranian state-backed hackers are breaking into and disabling industrial control systems at US water and energy providers. This new alert comes months after federal agencies warned of the escalation of piracy operations from Iranian parties amid the ongoing war.

in The advisory was updated on WednesdayThe FBI, NSA, Department of Energy and CISA said Iranian hackers were targeting programmable logic controllers on operational networks connected to the Internet, allowing them to manipulate data on their displays, causing outages and disruption of service.

The Iranian hackers were initially discovered earlier this year Targeting controllers It was manufactured by Rockwell, but the advisory has now expanded the types of industrial control systems vulnerable to attack to include products from Schneider Electric and Siemens.

The agencies warned that “cyber-vulnerable” industrial control systems could be affected, and urged owners of critical infrastructure to take action. According to the warning, the Iranian-backed hackers were “conducting this activity to cause disruptive effects within the United States,” likely in response to the ongoing war between Iran, the United States, and Israel.

According to the FBI, hackers broke into a critical infrastructure provider and changed the programming logic of the controllers to broken processes that handle shutdowns and critical alarms. This allows “systems to enter unsafe conditions without notifying operators of anomalies,” the feds said.

This is the latest in a series of cyberattacks launched by Iranian government hackers and their proxies across the region since the start of the war in February.

The hacking operations ranged from typical espionage, hacking and leaking operations in the country, such as Contents of FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email account leakedto more destructive, unconventional hacks that caused widespread damage or disruption. Among the most notable incidents was the hack of US medical technology giant Stryker, which allowed the Iranian hacking group Hanzala to… Scan tens of thousands of employee devices remotely.

Handala also took credit for the data breach Which affects California’s water provider, Cal Water In June, it claimed it could have disrupted the water supply (without providing evidence). The water provider said it saw no evidence of unauthorized access to its operational networks, which control water supplies.