Water industry video series on critical infrastructure

May 18, 2018
The American Association of Water Distribution & Management (AAWD&M) has a Video Module Series on critical infrastructure. Fellow speakers were from the California Water Resources Control Board, Appalachian State University, Alvaka Networks, and myself. My presentation discussed control system cyber security with a focus on water/wastewater facilities including selected water industry control system cyber incidents. 

Thursday, May 17th, I did taping for the American Association of Water Distribution & Management (AAWD&M) Video Module Series on critical infrastructure. Fellow speakers were from the California Water Resources Control Board, Appalachian State University, and Alvaka Networks. My presentation discussed control system cyber security with a focus on water/wastewater facilities including selected water industry control system cyber incidents. Specifically, I addressed a known malicious cyber attack and a cyber incident that may or may not have been malicious (lack of control system cyber forensics). In the malicious case, sewage discharge valves were opened and dumped almost a million liters of sewage. The event was not identified as being cyber-related the first 20 times the valves were opened. The second case involved water being pumped from a superfund site into the drinking water system. It should be evident from an impact perspective, it doesn’t matter if this was a malicious attack or not. The video will be available for restricted viewing in about 30 days on the AAWD&M website (www.aawdm.org). AAWD&M will restrict access to public water systems and affiliated stakeholders and will not be made available to the public.

Joe Weiss