Why the White House is Focused on Community-Level Water Cybersecurity – By David Lynch (Nextgov) / March 25, 2022
A hack on municipal water and wastewater systems could have devastating consequences on an essential resource.
As a society, we are heading into a more turbulent period with increasing geopolitical conflicts. With that, new lines of attack are being opened which will be more coordinated, more complex and better funded than any we have seen before. The era where cyberattacks are limited to obvious finance and military targets is also over.
While past attempts to breach water organization networks and compromise American water supplies haven’t had much success (yet), the threat of a cyberattack happening anywhere at any time is enough to warrant throwing the full weight of technology and expertise behind securing America’s water infrastructure. Only one problem: water and wastewater cybersecurity is largely the responsibility of traditionally sub-federal utilities and plants that are often forced to make do with limited resources, operating across a patchwork of aging software systems.
The White House’s recent extension of President Biden’s public-private cyber task force to water and wastewater is an exciting and imperative development. It’s a federal move that will realize immediate, technology-powered local benefits to public health, safety and security. For this effort to be successful, however, it’s important to appreciate that a water authority in a rural town in Utah, Tennessee or Vermont should be as concerned about cybersecurity and threat detection as one servicing a metropolis like Miami, Los Angeles or New York City.
