CAPE MAY, NJ – The City of Cape May Water and Sewer Department and the Borough of Woodbine Water Department recently identified and responded to a cybersecurity incident affecting portions of their computer network. Upon detecting the unauthorized activity, the Departments immediately activated their incident response procedures, isolated the affected systems, and began working with cybersecurity specialists, the New Jersey Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Cell (NJCCIC), and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to investigate and contain the incident. The investigation remains ongoing.
This incident did not interfere with the safety or quality of the public drinking water in either municipality. Water treatment, water supply, and monitoring systems continue to operate safely, and routine testing confirms that the water supply remains safe. Additionally, no personal information or customer data was accessed or compromised in either water system, as a result of this incident.
"Our highest priorities are protecting public health, maintaining reliable water service, and safeguarding our systems," said City Manager Paul Dietrich. "We acted quickly to contain the incident and continued to work with cybersecurity experts to strengthen our systems while maintaining uninterrupted service to our community. Our water supply remains safe thanks to the efforts put forth from our Water and Sewer Department and NJCCIC to quickly detect, contain and eradicate the threat.”
“We are taking every effort to protect and defend our water supply and production. We supply water to the City of Cape May, West Cape May, Lower Township, Cape May Point, and the United States’ only Coast Guard Training Center located in Cape May City,” said Cape May City Mayor Zachary Mullock. “We are working with state and federal agencies to ensure our water desalination plant is protected from any adversarial threat.”
This incident has been reported to the Governor’s Office, Senator Cory Booker, Senator Andy Kim, and Congressman Jeff Van Drew, who responded quickly and stand ready to assist if there any further repercussions arising from this occurrence.
“Fortunately, Woodbine’s water system is constructed in such a way that any outside attempts at gaining access to the system are caught immediately and resolved just as quickly,” said Borough of Woodbine Mayor William Pikolycky. “Bad actors were only successful in interrupting our phone communication to the water system. This resulted in a few bad hours for the Borough of Woodbine Water Department personnel as they reactivated the system manually and consulted with the contractor, CISA, Homeland Security and the FBI. Once the information gathering was complete, the system was back online with no further issues.”
The NJCCIC serves as New Jersey's primary civilian cybersecurity resource, providing cyber threat intelligence, incident response coordination, and technical assistance to public agencies and critical infrastructure partners throughout the state. Its assistance helps ensure that cybersecurity incidents are thoroughly investigated and that appropriate protective measures are implemented.
Water service has remained operational throughout the incident, and residents do not need to take any action. Officials will continue to monitor system performance and provide updates if new information becomes available.
The City of Cape May and the Borough of Woodbine appreciate the public's patience and confidence as the investigation continues. Transparency remains a priority, and additional information will be shared as appropriate without compromising the ongoing investigation or system security.
For additional information, contact Cape May City Manager Paul Dietich at [email protected] or (609) 435-2642, the office of Mayor William Pikolycky at [email protected] or (609) 861-2153, or NJCCIC at [email protected] or (609) 584-4392.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
CITY OF CAPE MAY INCIDENT TIMELINE:
MONDAY, JULY 27, 2026
1:30 am – City of Cape May Water and Sewer Department received an alarm that communications were lost to the remote monitoring system.
2:30 am – Water and Sewer Department staff arrived onsite and changed the system over to manual controls and continued to troubleshoot the communication issues over the next several hours.
6:30 am – Water and Sewer Superintendent Rob Cummisky notified City Manager Paul Dietrich of the communication issues which first appeared to be a loss of power.
8:00 am – City’s controller vendor arrived onsite to assist the Water and Sewer Department staff.
1:30 pm – Controller vendor determined that the loss of communication was due to a potential cyberattack and this was communicated to the City Manager and the NJCCIC.
TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2026
7:00 am – NJCCIC arrived onsite to conduct a full evaluation of the City’s system.
1:00 pm – System returned to normal operations.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 2026
7:49 am – Mayor and Council were notified of the confirmed cyberattack.
____________________________________________________________________________________
BOROUGH OF WOODBINE INCIDENT TIMELINE:
MONDAY, JULY 27, 2026
12:15 am - Communications with Borough’s remote monitoring system were lost.
1:00 am - Environmental & Technical Services, LLC (ETS) arrived onsite and began manually operating the water system to maintain service until system demand was satisfied. During this time, ETS contacted the cellular service provider to determine the status of the communication connection to the remote monitoring system.
TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2026
- Communication with Borough’s remote monitoring system remained unavailable.
- The Borough’s controller vendor was contacted for additional technical support. ETS continued troubleshooting the issue and manually operating the water system to maintain normal service.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 2026
- Manual operation of the water system continued into the early morning hours.
- The Borough’s controller vendor contacted the ETS Licensed Operator and advised that the communication failure may have been related to a potential cybersecurity incident.
11:00 am - ETS and the Borough’s controller vendor completed the necessary corrective actions and successfully regained control of the Borough’s SCADA system. The water system was subsequently returned to automatic operation.
Shortly thereafter, a meeting was held with representatives from Homeland Security to review the incident and discuss recommended measures to reduce the likelihood of a similar event occurring in the future.
