This audio is automatically generated. Please let us know if you have any comments.
Dive Brief:
- The Congressional watchdog is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to urgently develop a strategy to address the growing risk of malicious cyber activity targeting the nation’s drinking and wastewater, according to a report. US Government Accountability Office report premiered last week.
- In recent months, the sector has faced increased threat activity from state-linked and criminal hackers targeting vulnerable water services using custom malware, ransomware and other tools designed to disable, sabotage or exfiltrate data.
- EPA must conduct an industry-wide risk assessment, the GAO said, because the water sector is not prepared to protect itself from these existing threats without additional government support.
Diving knowledge:
The Biden administration has prioritized the drinking water and wastewater treatment industries as a series of high-profile hacking incidents have raised concerns about the ability to secure the drinking water and wastewater treatment sectors. country water
The White House and EPA in March urged state officials to provide information on how water utilities were prepared to combat increased cyber risks. EPA officials said they remain concerned that the information is not being integrated into a comprehensive strategy.
“This question would provide information on a state-by-state basis, but would not integrate states’ risks at the national level,” Alfredo Gomez, GAO’s director of natural resources and the environment, said by email. “Our previous work has emphasized the integration of risk information into a comprehensive risk assessment.”
National Cyber Director Harry Coker Jr. outlined steps to address the water industry in a May speech in Washington, D.C. Coker detailed plans for the EPA to increase technical assistance for public water systems and for the Department of Agriculture invests in programs for rural water services.
After the GAO report last week, EPA officials said they are working on plans to strengthen federal assistance to the water industry. The EPA in 2023 launched plans to get water companies to strengthen cyber resilience through audits, but that plan was scrapped after a state legal challenge.
“EPA remains committed to providing cybersecurity technical assistance to the water sector and will continue to work with our federal partners to pursue all opportunities to reduce risk to the nation’s drinking water and wastewater systems,” the agency said in a statement.
