At 8:42 a.m. on July 27, 2026  a public works operator was carrying out his daily check of the water system in Braham, Minnesota, when he noticed something was off: The water tower’s level was dropping, but the well that was supposed to refill it wasn’t responding. The water utility had been cyberattacked

On that day  the heat index neared 100 degrees and local officials urged residents to minimize their water use to prevent the town’s limited supply from running dry. “The water plant is currently offline for an unknown reason,” read a mass text message sent to locals as an outside specialist drove to Braham to investigate the issue. “The city has water in the water tower, however, that is a limited quantity.” Braham officials soon learned they weren’t alone. Dozens of communities across Minnesota were reporting that their water systems appeared to have been targeted, forcing some of them to declare a local state of emergency.

What had begun as local water outages and disruptions quickly became part of a federal investigation….The incidents had exposed a longstanding vulnerability in America’s infrastructure: Small water utilities like Braham increasingly rely on internet-connected automation but often lack the staff and funding to secure it. FBI was probing whether Iran-linked actors were behind the attacks, which had targeted more than 30 water systems in Minnesota.

Excerpt from Vera Bergengruen, The Cyberattack That Brought a Distant War to Small-Town Minnesota, WSJ, Aug. 8, 2026