Biden administration brings out Water Sector Action plan to bolster cyber-resilience

Biden administration brings out Water Sector Action plan to bolster cyber-resilience

The U.S. administration extended on Thursday its industrial control systems (ICS) cybersecurity initiative with a Water Sector Action plan that works towards safeguarding the nation’s water resources from cybersecurity attacks. The blueprint seeks to accelerate cyber-resilience for the water sector and will outline surge actions that will take place over the next three months to improve cybersecurity within the sector.

The water sector action plan focuses on promoting and supporting the water sector’s adoption of strategies for the early detection of cyber-threats and allowing for the rapid sharing of cyber-threat data across the government, in order to expedite analysis and action. The proposed actions include establishing a task force of water sector leaders, implementing pilot projects to demonstrate and accelerate the adoption of incident monitoring, improving information sharing and data analysis, and providing technical support to water systems. 

The water sector action plan has been developed in close partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Water Sector Coordinating Council (WSCC). On Wednesday, the government released a memorandum that directs agencies to the highest-value starting points on their path to a zero-trust strategy that describes several shared services, which should be prioritized to support a long-term government-wide effort.

The action plan follows up on U.S. President Joe Biden’s ICS Initiative last July, which envisages collaboration between the federal government and the critical infrastructure community to improve the security of the critical systems. The ICS Initiative is a collaborative effort between the federal government and the critical infrastructure community to facilitate the deployment of technologies that provide cyber-related threat visibility, indicators, detections, and warnings.

The water sector action plan is a collaborative effort between the federal government and the critical infrastructure community to facilitate the deployment of technologies and systems that provide cyber-related threat visibility, indicators, detections, and warnings, according to a fact sheet released by the White House. 

The administration has already established ICS initiatives for the electric and natural gas pipeline subsectors, and currently, over 150 electricity utilities serving over 90 million residential customers and multiple critical natural gas pipelines have deployed or are in the process of deploying additional cybersecurity technologies, the fact sheet added.

“Similar to electric and pipeline action plans, this plan will assist owners and operators with deploying technology that will monitor their systems and provide near real-time situational awareness and warnings. The plan will also allow for rapidly sharing relevant cybersecurity information with the government and other stakeholders, which will improve the sector’s ability to detect malicious activity,” it added.
 

EPA and CISA will work with water utilities and invite them to participate in a pilot program for ICS monitoring and information sharing, according to the action plan. “This pilot will demonstrate the value of such technology to the sector. The WSCC, CISA, and EPA will also collaborate to promote cybersecurity monitoring to the entire sector,” it added. 

EPA and its federal partners intend to work with water sector stakeholders to encourage, incentivize, and assist in the rapid deployment of ICS cybersecurity monitoring technologies. By implementing the action plan, partners across the government will lay the foundation for supporting enhanced ICS cybersecurity across water systems of all sizes, ensuring improved cyber preparedness.

The water sector action plan will meet the particular requirements of this sector, as it is made up of thousands of systems that range in size from the very small to ones that service major metropolitan cities that have little or no cybersecurity expertise and are unsure what steps they should take to address cyber risks. EPA and CISA will work with appropriate private sector partners to develop protocols for sharing information. The government will not select, endorse, or recommend any specific technology or provider.
 

The plan will initially focus on the utilities that serve the largest populations and have the highest consequence systems. However, it will lay the foundation for supporting enhanced ICS cybersecurity across water systems of all sizes.

“The Biden Administration’s recommendation to implement detection technologies on critical infrastructure assets is a good first step in improving our nation’s cybersecurity posture,” Mark Carrigan, cyber vice president for process safety and OT cybersecurity at Hexagon PPM, wrote in an emailed statement. “That said, these measures will not be nearly sufficient to reduce the risk to an acceptable level. The state of detection technology today is not ‘fool-proof,’” he added.

The administration has rapidly moved out on a whole-of-government effort to counter ransomware including disrupting ransomware infrastructure and hackers, bolstering public and private resilience to withstand ransomware attacks, leveraging international cooperation to address safe harbors for ransomware criminals, and disrupting the ransomware ecosystem. 

U.S. agencies had last October highlighted ongoing cyber threats to the water sector. The activity identified at the time included cyber intrusions leading to ransomware attacks, which threatens the ability of the sector’s facilities to provide clean and potable water, and effectively manage the wastewater of their communities. These threats come from both known and unknown hackers targeting the IT and operational technology (OT) networks, systems, and devices of the water sector facilities.

Earlier this month, the Joint Research Centre at the European Reference Network for Critical Infrastructure Protection (ERNCIP) released its Water Security Plan in the form of a manual that deals with the implementation of security measures to counter hostile actions against the physical and cyber integrity of water supply systems.

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