Kansas Water Utility Attack

The DOJ announced they were indicting Wyatt Travnichek for hacking the Ellsworth Rural Water District No. 1 (AKA Post Rock Rural Water District) in Ellsworth County, Kansas in March 2019.  The DOJ is claiming that Travnichek tampered with the water purification and disinfecting systems via computers with the intent of causing harm.  If found guilty on all charges he faces 25 years in prison.  It appears that he was a former employee that had remote access privileges.  Apparently, when his employment ended in January 2019, his remote access was not revoked, which allowed him to remotely access the services from a Samsung smartphone.  A representative for the water utility indicated that there were no safety impacts as other processes caught the tampering. 

 https://therecord.media/man-charged-for-hacking-kansas-water-utility-with-intent-to-harm-public/?web_view=true 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ellsworth-co-man-indicted-for-tampering-with-public-water-system/ar-BB1faZ9l

https://in.pcmag.com/security/141807/feds-charge-22-year-old-for-hacking-kansas-water-supplier

https://www.cyberscoop.com/kansas-ellsworth-water-district-hack-travnichek/

https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/22-year-old-charged-with-hacking-water.html

 

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