Federal investigators are probing hacks that affected water system technology in Minnesota and at least six other U.S. states last week. Some utilities switched to manual operations, and the case has now become a test of how exposed civilian infrastructure still is.
Mike Turner on water hacks
Mike Turner said critical infrastructure assets need to be hardened. He made the point on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan, after saying Congress has not been informed about the incidents.
Turner also said Iran has attacked U.S. critical infrastructure previously. He warned that Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran look at critical infrastructure that supports civilian systems, like water, as valid military targets.
Iran, Trump, and the probe
U.S. officials and sources familiar with the incident told CBS News that investigators were looking into whether the activity was the work of Iranian hackers. That lines up with the FBI's statement last week that at least seven states reported cyber activity affecting water system technology.
Donald Trump took the opposite view on Sunday. He said he did not think the Iranians were behind the attack, said Minnesota was responsible for the attack, and called Minnesota's leadership grossly incompetent while pointing without evidence to Tim Walz.
The phrase manual operations signals a fallback to local control when software or network tools cannot be trusted. For water systems, that usually means staff have to rely on on-site procedures instead of remote automation until the intrusion or tampering is contained.
The unanswered question is still the same one investigators are working through: what specific malicious activity occurred at the water systems, and who carried it out.
