A former employee of a rural central Kansas water facility pleaded guilty on Wednesday to tampering with its computer system and shutting down the plant, the Justice Department announced. Wyatt Travnichek, 23, of Lorraine, pleaded guilty to one count of tampering with a public water system and one count of reckless damage to a protected computer system during unauthorized access. Travnichek was hired at the Post Rock Rural Water District in Ellsworth, which supplies water to about 1,500 customers in central Kansas, in 2018 but resigned one year later in January 2019, according to court documents. While working at the plant, Travnichek was able to monitor it after hours using a remote login system which could be accessed via a shared passcode, according to the Kansas City Star. Months after he had resigned, on March 27, 2019, the former employee allegedly used his cell phone to access the remote system and shut down the plant, and turn off one of its …
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