Cyberpunks mess with Canada's water, energy, and farm systems

Hacktivists have breached Canadian critical infrastructure systems to meddle with controls that could have led to dangerous conditions, marking the latest in a string of real-world intrusions driven by online activists rather than spies.

In a joint alert issued this week, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said industrial control systems (ICS) had been manipulated by hacktivists – not for money, but for the thrill and headlines.

The victims included a municipal water facility where pressure values were changed, an oil and gas company whose tank gauge was tampered with, and a farm silo where drying temperatures were altered, "resulting in potentially unsafe conditions if not caught on time."

Officials stressed these weren't sophisticated, state-sponsored operations but opportunistic intrusions that caused real-world disruption ranging from false alarms to degraded service. The attackers didn't need custom malware or insider access either – just a connection ...