Wyatt Travnichek, a resident of Ellsworth County, Kansas, and former employee at the Ellsworth County Rural Water District No. 1, was indicted March 31 after allegedly causing the shutdown of the facility's cleaning and disinfection processes for drinking water, according to Ars Technica.
"On or about March 27, 2019, in the District of Kansas, the defendant, Wyatt Travnichek, knowingly tampered with a public drinking water system, namely the Ellsworth County Rural Water District No. 1," the indictment read. "To wit: he logged in remotely to Post Rock Rural Water District's computer system and performed activities that shut down processes at the facility which affect the facility's cleaning and disinfecting procedures with the intention of harming the Ellsworth County Rural Water District No. 1."
Travnichek will be charged with one count each of reckless damage to a protected computer during unauthorized access and tampering with a public water system, and may face a 25-year prison sentence and pay a fine of $500,000.
Breach, Critical infrastructure, Data security, Threat intelligence
Feds say man remotely accessed public water system and shut down safety processes
Jill Aitoro
Jill Aitoro is senior vice president of content strategy for CyberRisk Alliance. She has more than 20 years of experience editing and reporting on technology, business and policy. Prior to joining CRA, she worked at Sightline Media as editor of Defense News and executive editor of the Business-to-Government Group. She previously worked at Washington Business Journal and Nextgov, covering federal technology, contracting and policy, as well as CMP Media’s VARBusiness and CRN and Penton Media’s iSeries News.
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