Tag Archive for: Utility

Small Kansas water utility system hacking highlights risks

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ELLSWORTH, Kan. (AP) — A former Kansas utility worker has been charged with remotely tampering with a public water system’s cleaning procedures, highlighting the difficulty smaller utilities face in protecting against hackers.

Wyatt Travnichek, 22, was charged last month with remotely accessing the Post Rock Rural Water District’s systems in March 2019, about two months after he quit his job with the utility. He’s accused of shutting down the facility’s cleaning and disinfecting procedures.

When he worked for the utility, he would monitor the water plant remotely by logging into its computer system, the Kansas City Star reports.


The federal indictment says Travnichek used a Samsung phone to commit the offense. Post Rock utility officials declined to provide further details. Travnichek’s attorney, a federal public defender, didn’t respond to the Star’s request for comment.

No centralized database of hacker attacks on utilities exists, but a 2016 report from the federal Department of Energy said the Department of Homeland Security responded to 25 water cybersecurity incidents in 2015.

The Florida city of Oldsmar, population 15,000, reported in February that a hacker attempted to poison its water supply by remotely accessing its system and changing chemical levels. An employee was able to quickly reverse the hacker’s actions.

Small utilities such as Post Rock may not have the resources to hire dedicated information technology staff. Commonly their employees juggle multiple roles, including cybersecurity.

“As far as cities having an IT person, I just don’t know of any our size,” said Bill Shroyer, assistant city administrator in Sabetha, in northern Kansas, and president of the Kansas Rural Water Association. “And if we did have an IT person, they better know how to repair pot holes, fix water leaks, pick up snow and everything else that we do.”

Security experts say the Post Rock case could be as simple as officials failing to revoke Travnichek’s electronic access after he quit. The indictment doesn’t specify…

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Employee Indicted for Hacking Kansas Water Utility and Trying to Shut Down Key Systems

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A federal grand jury is indicting a 22-year-old guy over accusations that he tampered with a public water system. Dude allegedly hacked into a computer system that controls a rural water utility in Ellsworth County, Kansas, then messing with the virtual processes that affect procedures for cleaning and disinfecting drinking water.



As if we didn’t have enough risks to drinking water to manage.

© Photo: Tony Gutierrez (AP)
As if we didn’t have enough risks to drinking water to manage.

On March 31, Wyatt Travnichek was charged with one count of tampering with a public water system and one count of reckless damage to a protected computer during unauthorized access. If convicted, he’ll face up to 25 years in prison and $500,000 in fines.

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The story is pretty wild. Travnichek actually worked at the water district, which services more than 1,500 retail customers and 10 wholesale customers in eight Kansas counties, from January 2018 to January 2019. Part of his role was to virtually monitor its water plant after hours by remotely log into the district’s computer system, so in a sense he was just doing his old job.

The Department of Justice alleges that he logged on with the intention to harm, though thankfully, according to Cyberscoop, no one was harmed. According to the indictment, Travnichek “accessed a protected computer without authorization,” then remotely logged on and “performed activities that shut down processes at the facility which affect the facility’s cleaning and disinfecting procedures.”

“By illegally tampering with a public drinking water system, the defendant threatened the safety and health of an entire community,” Lance Ehrig, Special Agent in Charge of EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division in Kansas, said in a statement. “EPA and its law enforcement partners are committed to upholding the laws designed to protect our drinking water systems from harm or threat of harm. Today’s indictment sends a clear message that individuals who intentionally violate these laws will be vigorously prosecuted.”

The Crisis at a Florida Wastewater Reservoir Show the Risks of Our Weak Infrastructure

What’s even more bonkers than this guy’s actions, though, was that he was able to carry them…

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Some Pell City utility customers may have suffered data breach (free content) – Daily Home Online

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Some Pell City utility customers may have suffered data breach (free content)  Daily Home Online
“data breach” – read more

Florida utility to close natural gas plants, build massive solar-powered battery

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Rows of solar panels under a cloudy sky.

Enlarge / Solar panels in Arcadia, Florida. (credit: Brooks Kraft LLC/Corbis via Getty Images)

On Thursday, Florida Power and Light (FPL) announced that it would retire two natural gas plants and replace those plants with what is likely to be the world’s largest solar-powered battery bank when it’s completed in 2021.

FPL, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy, serves approximately 10 million customers in Florida. The utility says its plan, including additional efficiency upgrades and smaller battery installations throughout its service area, will save customers more than $ 100 million in aggregate through avoided fuel costs. FPL also says its battery and upgrade plan will help avoid 1 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

The plan calls for the construction of a 409 megawatt (MW) / 900 megawatt-hour battery installation at what will be called the FPL Manatee Energy Storage Center. For context, the largest battery installation in the world was built by Tesla at a Hornsdale wind farm in South Australia; that has a capacity and power rating of 100 MW / 129 MWh.

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