US water company WSSC Water hit by a ransomware attack

US water company WSSC Water is investigating a ransomware attack that affected non-essential business systems in May.

WSSC Water is investigating a ransomware attack that took place on May 24 and that targeted a portion of their network that operates non-essential business systems.

According to reports from WJZ13 Baltimore, the company removed the malware just hours later and locked out the threat, however, the attackers accessed internal files. WSSC has already notified the FBI, Maryland Attorney General, and state and local homeland security officials.

The company operates filtration and wastewater treatment plants, fortunately, the attack did not impact the water quality, but the investigation is still ongoing.

“WSSC Water continues to produce and deliver safe, clean water to 1.8 million customers in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and at no time was the quality or reliability of our drinking water in jeopardy,” WSSC Water Police and Homeland Security Director David McDonough said in a statement. “These attacks have become more common, especially in recent weeks, and WSSC Water has prepared for this type of event,”

The company uses air-gapped networks and was able to restore encrypted files from backups.

The incident had no impact on the company because it was prepared to repel such attacks that are becoming frequent, McDonough explained.

WSSC is warning customers of possible attacks abusing the accessed data, it is recommending them to monitor their financial statements and report any suspicious transaction.

The company is going to offer affected people five years of credit monitoring with $1,000,000 in identity theft insurance at no cost.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, water facility)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.