House Representatives Ruben Gallego, D-Arizona, and Pat Fallon, R-Texas, are seeking answers from the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, on how hacks are going to be prevented in the future like the cyberattack launched against the water system in Muleshoe, Texas. The hack caused the small Texas town’s water system to overflow, and, within two hours, sent water flowing out of the town’s water tower, losing tens of thousands of gallons of water. These attacks could have "devastating impacts" on rural communities in drought-stricken areas across the country.

The two lawmakers sent a list of questions to Mayorkas, asking what steps he is taking to protect the nation’s water facilities and other critical infrastructure from disruption and what lessons his department has learned from previous hacks, pointing to an incident last year when an Iranian regime-linked cyber group conducted a hack against a water authority in Pennsylvania.

In Hale Center in Texas there were about 37,000 attempts in four days to log into the city’s firewall. Ultimately, the attempted hack failed as the city "unplugged" the system and operated it manually. But in Muleshoe, which has a population of about 5,000, hackers caused the system to overflow before it was shut down and taken over manually by city officials. Read more about this story on our LinkedIn page