As reported in several of our blog posts, cybersecurity threats continue to be a critical and growing issue for national infrastructure security.
In April of 2021, the Biden Administration launched the Industrial Control Systems cybersecurity initiative to improve the security of electric utilities that have experienced cyber-attacks on their infrastructure. By August, natural gas pipelines became an area of interest to the initiative to protect the supply lines from critical threats. The newest topic in consideration for the initiative is adding water utilities. Our water supplies have been vulnerable to cyberattacks within the past few years, with several notable attacks taking place throughout 2021. Given the ongoing threats, boosting up cybersecurity for water supplies is projected to be a high priority for 2022.
In the White House's plan to include water utilities, the hope is to influence major industrial companies to upgrade their technology for cyberattack detection. An additional goal is for water utilities to monitor and report data to help identify threats that might impact water infrastructure.