Incident Awareness – Major North American Water Utility Experiences Ransomware Incident

Water utility giant, Veolia North America, is the latest victim of a ransomware attack adding to the recent spate of cyber attacks impacting entities across the water and wastewater systems sector. As the investigation ensues, it appears the attack was limited to the company’s internal back-end servers and affected its bill payment systems. While Veolia has stated that there is “no evidence to suggest it affected our water or wastewater treatment operations,” experts and investigators are still assessing the full extent of the attack’s impact. In an effort to contain the attack, Veolia took its back-end systems offline before restoring them to regular functionality which has caused some customers to experience delays in payment processing. There have also been reports, although limited, of personal information being stolen. Veolia North America operates 416 facilities across the U.S. and Canada serving roughly 550 communities and has locations across all 50 U.S States. For more details, access Veolia, Bleeping Computer, or The Record.