Foreign hacker at utility was false alarm

An apparent foreign intrusion into an Illinois municipal water system's computers has turned out to be a false alarm, a source told The Washington Post.The "intruder" was a contractor who accessed the system remotely while on a trip to Russia, the source said. Problems with a water pump in the Curran-Gardner Townships Public Water District were not linked to the activity."No indicators of malicious activity were found," the source said.The Illinois Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center first raised the possibility of foreign hacking in a preliminary report, the Post said. Joe Weiss, an expert on control systems, publicized the report.The U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned the report had no "credible, corroborated data" that a foreign hacker, for the first time ever, was accessing a public utility in the United States.The water pump problems are still under investigation.