Water and Wastewater Systems Become Strategic Targets for Russia, China, and Iran

**Executive summary:** This report warns that Russia-, China-, and Iran-linked actors are actively probing and exploiting weakly defended water/wastewater systems — using internet-facing HMIs/PLCs, default credentials, and poor IT/OT segmentation — with observed opportunistic disruptions, pre-positioning for strategic persistence, and criminal ransomware intrusions; it includes IoCs and prescribes prioritized hardening and federal–state assistance for small utilities.