Feds deny hacking caused Illinois water pump failure

Did a hacker or group of hackers, possibly in Russia, have the capacity to physically destroy a water pump in Springfield, Illinois? That was the word last week, when reports spread that hackers had managed to take control of the water plant’s Supervisory Control and information Acquisition System (or SCADA), which gave them the power to continually turn the pump off and on and finally burn it out. Now, however, both the FBI and the dep. of Homeland Security say that their investigations have found no evidence of hacking or malicious activity, and that earlier reports were in accordance with “raw, unconfirmed data.” As it’s possible you’ll expect, that explanation isn’t quite being accepted by everyone, including Joe Weiss, the safety researcher who first reported the incident. Yow will discover his comments on Wired’s Threat Level blog linked below.