Washington Post
December 4, 2011
Mystery solved. A reported cyberattack on a water district in central Illinois turned out to be a false alarm set off when an American contractor logged onto the system remotely while vacationing in Russia.
Jim Mimlitz of suburban St. Louis says he hopes he’ll be able to laugh about it someday. For now, the contractor is puzzled. Why didn’t terrorism investigators pick up the phone and call him? He says he could have straightened out the matter quickly.
Instead, investigators assumed someone had stolen Mimlitz’ password and hacked into the system from Russia, causing a water pump to shut down five months later. A blogger spread word of the possible hack, touching off a minor panic.
The truth is, Mimlitz was on vacation with his family in Russia in June. Someone from the Curran Gardner Public Water District near Springfield called his cell phone and asked him to check data on the system. He did, but he didn’t mention he was doing so from Russia.
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