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One official briefed was told it may have involved Iran, but there’s no evidence any attempt was made.

TAMPA, Fla — Both the city of Tampa and Tampa Bay Water confirm federal law enforcement and security agencies told them there could be a cyber-attack on the water supply over the Fourth of July weekend.

They no longer believe there’s an active threat. But through the weekend, they did after being told there was a specific threat to its water infrastructure.

Tampa city spokesperson Adam Smith says federal cyber-security experts reached out last week and warned the city’s water and IT departments may be targeted.

Tampa Bay Water, responsible for the drinking water for more than 2.6 million people, confirms the city reached out to them on July 2 saying they were investigating a “potential concern.” It supplies wholesale drinking water to Hillsborough County, Pasco County, Pinellas County, New Port Richey, St. Petersburg and Tampa.

“We’ve got a bunch of cyber partners in the federal government and internationally that alert us to this kind of thing because everybody’s monitoring for it constantly,” Tampa city spokesperson Adam Smith said. “We were sort of at ‘all-hands-on-deck’ and we checked out our systems very thoroughly,. Fortunately, everything was okay, and we were safe.”

Pinellas County Commission Chair and Tampa Bay Water Board member Kathleen Peters says she was briefed that it involved a threat that Iran may try a cyber-attack in Tampa Bay.

It comes two weeks after the Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin, warning “low-level cyber-attacks against the United States by pro-Iranian hacktivists are likely.”

“Iran, of course, is a threat,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a recent Senate hearing. “They have been a threat, and they always will be a threat to our country.”

Both the city and Tampa Bay Water had no comment when we asked specifically about Iran. The FBI tells us they don’t “confirm or the deny the existence or nonexistence of any investigation.”

“Our IT department is hyper vigilant about this kind of thing because unfortunately this is happening all too often,” Smith says.

This isn’t the first time there’s been concern over an attack on local water facilities.

Back in 2021, concern over a cyber-attack at the Oldsmar water plant caught national attention. At the time, investigators said someone raised the level of sodium hydroxide which is found in cleaning products.

After two years of investigation, the FBI eventually concluded the alleged attack was believed to be human error by an employee. That employee fixed the issue within two minutes. That outcome was the best one in a case like this, but it highlights the need for increased security at water infrastructure and IT sites.

‘It is a constant thing, and it’s one of the most important things our IT department does,” Smith adds. “I think probably every IT department in government does this because there are a lot of threats out there, and they’re happening all the time.”