American Water, the largest regulated water and wastewater utility in the U.S., announced Tuesday that it was the target of a “cyber security incident.”
The New Jersey-based utility became aware Thursday of “unauthorized activity” in its computer networks and systems that was determined to be the result of a cyberattack, the company said in a statement.
“Upon learning of the issue, our team immediately activated our incident response protocols and external cybersecurity professionals to assist with containment, mitigation and an investigation into the nature and extent of the incident,” the company said. “We have also notified law enforcement and are fully coordinating with them.”
American Water also took their customer portal service offline as part of their response, halting billing “until further notice,” they said.
“At this time, we believe that none of our water or wastewater facilities or operations have been negatively impacted by this incident,” the company said, adding that their team is working to safely restore the systems.
American Water, founded in 1886, provides drinking water and wastewater services to more than 14 million people in 14 states and 18 military facilities, according to their website. The company operates more than 500 water and wastewater systems in approximately 1,700 communities, including California, Illinois, Kentucky, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
The investigation into the cyberattack is ongoing “and will take some time to complete,” American Water said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
