Jamie Bennet
The U.S. water sector needs to reform its risk quantification and cybersecurity infrastructure amid rising attacks on critical infrastructure, including the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, wrote Jacobs’ cybersecurity executives John Karabias and Adi Karisik.
Karabias, vice president of operational technology cybersecurity, and Karisik, OT cybersecurity principal at Jacobs Global Technology, discussed in a recent column the need for operational IT defense in protecting water utilities amid evolving online threats.
Water’s vital role in everyday life has made its sector a primary target for malicious entities and access points to its OTs must be fortified through principles such as “secure by design.” Physical and technical systems such as supervisory control and data acquisition software should have an efficient network linking them together.
“Water entities can improve their risk posture by bracketing risk through the lens of design, upgrades and at defined critical points,” according to Karabias and Karisik. They explained that organizations “can efficiently incorporate proven practices and technologies that reduce digital risk” by starting early to build cybersecurity at the design process up to the point of product manufacturing.
