OT Cybersecurity for Water & Wastewater Systems
RIGHT-SIZED SOLUTIONS TO FIT ALL COMPLEX ENVIRONMENTS
Safe drinking water is essential for protecting public health and supporting all human activities. Properly treated wastewater is crucial for preventing disease and safeguarding the environment. Ensuring a reliable supply of clean drinking water and effective wastewater treatment is vital to modern life and the nation’s economy. At LeveL5Cyber, our team has decades of combined experience with OT cybersecurity for all different types of factories, plants, and Industrial Control Systems.
In the United States, there are approximately 152,000 public drinking water systems, including 50,000 community water systems, and more than 16,000 wastewater treatment systems. Over 80 percent of the U.S. population receives their potable water from these drinking water systems, and about 75 percent have their sanitary sewerage treated by these wastewater systems.
Both the ability to supply water and manage wastewater are considered National Critical Functions. These functions are so vital to the U.S. that their disruption, corruption, or dysfunction would have a debilitating effect on national security, economic stability, and public health and safety.
What We Offer
decades of hands-on experience
Operational focus to secure critical infrastructure
LeveL5Cyber offers advisory services that enable businesses to scale their operations and combat evolving threats. Our experts leverage decades of experience to provide solutions that optimize cybersecurity capabilities and drive towards program maturity.
Operational Technology Risks for Water & Wastewater Sectors
The Water and Wastewater Systems Sector is vulnerable to various threats, including physical attacks, cyberattacks, and contamination with harmful agents. Such incidents could result in widespread illness, casualties, and service disruptions, significantly impacting public health and economic stability. Additionally, the sector is vulnerable to a wide range of natural disasters. Critical services such as firefighting and healthcare, as well as other dependent and interdependent sectors like Energy, Healthcare and Public Health, and Critical Manufacturing, could experience face severe consequences from disruptions in water or wastewater services.
Many in-house technology departments may be unprepared for the scale and danger of modern cyberattacks.
According to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, water and wastewater are potentially vulnerable to data breaches because of:
- Remote monitoring and process management
- Process automation
- Low number of on-site workers or security personnel
- Large networks with little OT security
- Aging equipment integrations with security flaws that are difficult to patch
Solutions – OT Cybersecurity for Water & Wastewater
The risk of cyberattacks doesn’t mean critical industries are powerless. Just like investing in secure remote access solutions for greater operational safety and performance, building strong technological defenses with OT cybersecurity for Water and Wastewater helps reduce the risk of data intrusions.
Our experts follow NIST cybersecurity framework guidelines, ISO, ISA/IEC-62443, and other standards and frameworks.
CISA recommends
- Comprehensive risk assessments
- Segmentation and security gateways
- Physical and cybersecurity integrations
- Adaptive cybersecurity plans
- Ongoing IT/OT security management services
Where We Fit In
LeveL5Cyber has decades of hands-on experience in cybersecurity services for water and wastewater to address their specific needs and requirements. Our team understands the unique challenges and processes that exist and how to bolster cyber defenses within these arenas.
Services That Align to this Industry
Expert Cybersecurity Services for the Water & Wastewater
Businesses don’t need to navigate the constantly changing digital landscape alone. At LeveL5Cyber, we provide a range of customized OT cybersecurity for water and wastewater and other critical industry enterprises. Contact us today to get started.
Frequently Asked Questions
decades of hands-on experience
in cybersecurity
LeveL5Cyber’s Risk Assessments enable organizations to inform and prioritize decisions regarding cybersecurity. The services take into consideration today’s evolving threat landscape to drive cybersecurity priorities with an outcome-driven approach using industry standard processes.
While timing can vary, most Assessments will take approximately five to six weeks to complete. Program Development services may take longer based on the scope.
The ISA/IEC 62443 series of standards define requirements and processes for implementing and maintaining electronically secure industrial automation and control systems (IACS). These standards set best practices for security and provide a way to assess the level of security performance.
A NIST Special Publication provides guidance on how to secure operational technology (OT) while addressing their unique performance, reliability, and safety requirements. OT encompasses a broad range of programmable systems and devices that interact with the physical environment (or manage devices that interact with the physical environment). These systems and devices detect or cause a direct change through the monitoring and/or control of devices, processes, and events. Examples include industrial control systems, building automation systems, transportation systems, physical access control systems, physical environment monitoring systems, and physical environment measurement systems.
A NIST Special Publication that provides recommended requirements for protecting the confidentiality of controlled unclassified information (CUI)
Consult Our Experts
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