N.J. cyberattack disrupts Cape May, Woodbine water departments, officials say

A cybersecurity incident disrupted communications systems at two Cape May County water departments in late July, prompting operators to switch to manual controls while officials worked to contain the breach.

The City of Cape May Water and Sewer Department and the Borough of Woodbine Water Department detected unauthorized activity affecting portions of their computer networks on July 27, according to a joint statement released Aug. 6.

Water service remained operational throughout the incident, officials said, and the attack did not affect drinking water safety or expose customer information.

The disclosure comes days after New Jersey officials confirmed that two municipal water systems in the state were affected by cyberattacks similar to incidents reported at utilities elsewhere in the country. The New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness said those attacks temporarily limited operators’ ability to monitor or manage systems remotely but did not interrupt service.

“Our highest priorities are protecting public health, maintaining reliable water service, and safeguarding our systems,” Cape May City Manager Paul Dietrich said in a statement. “We acted quickly to contain the incident and continued to work with cybersecurity experts to strengthen our systems while maintaining uninterrupted service to our community.”

According to the statement, the incident began at 1:30 a.m. on July 27, when Cape May’s Water and Sewer Department received an alarm indicating that communications with its remote monitoring system had been lost. Department personnel arrived an hour later and switched the system to manual control while troubleshooting the issue.

In Woodbine, communications with the borough’s remote monitoring system were lost shortly after midnight on July 27. Environmental & Technical Services personnel arrived on site and manually operated the water system while efforts to diagnose the problem continued, according to the statement.

Cape May’s system returned to normal operations by the afternoon of July 28 after NJCCIC conducted an on-site evaluation. Woodbine regained control of its supervisory control and data acquisition system by late morning on July 29.

“Bad actors were only successful in interrupting our phone communication to the water system,” Woodbine Mayor William Pikolycky said in a statement. “This resulted in a few bad hours for the Borough of Woodbine Water Department personnel as they reactivated the system manually and consulted with the contractor, CISA, Homeland Security and the FBI.”

Cape May Mayor Zachary Mullock said the city’s water system serves Cape May, West Cape May, Cape May Point, Lower Township and the nation’s only Coast Guard Training Center.

“We are working with state and federal agencies to ensure our water desalination plant is protected from any adversarial threat,” Mullock said.

Federal authorities last week warned that “malicious cyber actors” were targeting internet-connected programmable logic controllers, or PLCs, used by water and wastewater utilities.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency reported a significant increase in activity targeting such systems and urged operators to remove exposed control systems from the internet whenever possible.

State officials have not identified who may have been responsible for the attacks affecting the New Jersey systems. Federal and state authorities have warned in recent years that Iran-linked hacking groups have shown interest in targeting vulnerable water and wastewater infrastructure.

Officials said no personal information or customer data was compromised and that routine testing confirmed the water supply remained safe throughout the incident.

The cyberattack was reported to the Governor’s Office, U.S. Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim, and U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, according to the statement. The departments also worked with NJCCIC, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Homeland Security and the FBI during the response.

The investigation is ongoing, according to the statement.

This article was produced with assistance from AI tools and reviewed by NJ.com staff.