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In the United States, the federal government’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued an up to date enforcement alert on water system safety, outlining pressing cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities to group ingesting water programs.
Howard Goodman, technical director at Skybox Security, spoke to Digital Journal in regards to the important subject of OT/IT cybersecurity gaps.
The key phrase, in accordance with Goodman, is “replace.” “The EPA’s current advisory on cybersecurity threats to water utilities highlights operational expertise (OT) and knowledge expertise (IT) gaps as an pressing subject. These gaps haven’t solely exacerbated vulnerabilities but additionally expanded the assault floor, complicating the duty of reaching complete visibility and management.”
Goodman notes that the size of the issue seems to be important: “Surprisingly, EPA inspections have revealed that greater than 70% of water programs fail to fulfill the cybersecurity requirements required by the Safe Drinking Water Act.”
The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) is a United States regulation designed to determine minimal requirements for water high quality. It was initially handed by Congress in 1974 to guard public well being by regulating the nation’s public ingesting water provides.
In taking corrective measures, Goodman advises: “Addressing OT/IT convergence in these utilities requires a strong, multi-faceted technique. Starting with enhanced safety posture administration via the mixing of superior risk detection applied sciences is essential.”
There are different advantages, too: “These applied sciences can present real-time monitoring and fast response capabilities. Secondly, automating compliance processes ensures constant adherence to regulatory requirements, reduces the danger of human error, and will increase effectivity.”
As an extra measure, Goodman advises: “Furthermore, complete community modeling that gives a holistic view of each OT and IT environments is important to facilitate an built-in safety framework. This strategy helps establish and mitigate potential safety gaps. To get rid of safety blind spots, organizational silos should be damaged down. A collaborative tradition is crucial for efficient cybersecurity.”
As for long-term options, Goodman says: “Finally, it is important to maneuver past conventional patch administration to optimize your remediation methods. Employing superior methods similar to behavioral analytics and predictive upkeep can considerably scale back downtime and make programs extra resilient.”
This ought to translate into robust preventative measures, Goodman mentioned: “These measures usually are not simply preventative — they’re important to strengthening the resilience of important infrastructure towards the evolution of worldwide cyber warfare. Proactive and built-in cybersecurity practices shall be important to defending water utilities and making certain the continuity of important companies.”