Poland says hackers breached water treatment plants, warns US faces the same threat

A report by ABW, Poland's domestic intelligence service, documents multiple cyberattacks on the operational technology networks of water treatment plants in the country. The agency directly attributes the activity to Russia and warns that sabotage attempts against military sites and civilian infrastructure have intensified in recent months.

Examples cited include attempts to gain unauthorized access to supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems controlling chlorination and filtration. Polish officials say attackers reached the level of competence needed to issue real operational commands and caused brief disruptions at some plants. The government has stepped up audits of critical-infrastructure operators in response.

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency confirmed that municipal water utilities in the United States have faced sustained pressure of the same kind. After the well-publicized Muleshoe, Texas, incident, federal investigators tied the campaign to groups including the China-linked Volt Typhoon and the Russia-aligned CyberAv3ngers, which have probed dozens of small municipal systems. Specialists point to legacy PLCs and exposed remote-access software as the central weaknesses widening the attack surface.