The City of Wichita recently had an experience that's become all too common — its water system was hacked. The cyberattack, which targeted water metering, billing and payment processing, followed the targeting of water utilities across the U.S. in recent years. While the methods may be simple, an attack last year by an Iranian-backed activist group against 12 water utilities in the U.S. reinforced how purposeful "an attacker's mindset" can be, according to Witt. The targeted utilities all contained equipment that was Israeli-made. Attacks on U.S. water utilities' IT systems can have a similar psychological impact, and even if the attacks don't directly interfere with the operations of the utility, still lessen public trust in water supply.

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Persons: that's, Ryan Witt, Witt, Adam Isles, Stuart Madnick Organizations: Environmental Protection Agency, FBI, NSA, Congress, U.S . Air Force, Chertoff Group, CNBC, Colonial Pipeline, Infrastructure Security Agency, Cybersecurity, MIT Sloan Locations: City, Wichita, Iranian, U.S, Israeli, United States, Texas, —