New partnership formed to share cyber threat intel with water utilities
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By
Chris Teale
The Water Information Sharing and Advisory Center partnered with Cyware to provide intelligence and what officials called a “collective defense” in the face of growing threats.
An organization dedicated to sharing cybersecurity threats with the water sector unveiled a new partnership last week to bolster that intelligence sharing and provide updates in real time.
The Water Information Sharing and Analysis Center announced Sept. 29 it had partnered with Cyware, which uses agentic artificial intelligence to share threats and provide collective defense. Once the partnership is fully operational, WaterISAC’s members in the water and wastewater sectors will receive AI-powered threat intelligence to enable streamlined information sharing.
Given the moment, just weeks after water systems in multiple states were hit by hackers linked to Iran and with more systems hit in Colorado recently, officials said the new partnership comes at a vital time as critical infrastructure operators face escalating threats.
“With our conflict with Iran and other threat actors around the globe, they can't shoot missiles at our homeland, but one way they can attack us is in the cyber landscape,” said Tom Dobbins, executive director of WaterISAC. “That's the challenge that we face right now. The other compounding problem to this is there are over 50,000 water utilities in this country, and many of them are very small, so they don't have the same cyber capabilities or defensive capabilities that Boston or Chicago or Los Angeles have."
And of those 50,000 water utilities, many lack the cybersecurity or even the IT staff to be able to handle the kinds of threats that critical infrastructure faces. In addition, they also may lack the resources to staff that area properly or even to acquire the proper cybersecurity protections and technology needed to protect them.
Meanwhile, the water sector itself relies a lot on physical infrastructure, which typically has received more investment, given the importance of drinking water and managing wastewater for public health. And one-off incidents like water main breaks then place further strains on already stretched capital budgets.
Tom Stockmeyer, managing director of government and critical infrastructure at Cyware, noted that that physical infrastructure often has a lifespan of decades, and while it was not connected to the internet earlier in its life, now it is, creating a new attack surface to be exploited. It means many utilities have to “make do and do the best you can,” so having real time intelligence that can be spread in a matter of hours, rather than in weeks makes a huge difference.
“The whole idea is if it happens to one, quickly get the information out within hours to everybody else to take action so they can't propagate across the landscape,” Stockmeyer said. “That's what collective defense is all about.”
The greater emphasis on cybersecurity has required what Dobbins called a shift in “mindset,” as some smaller utilities that may have thought they would not be a target for hackers due to their size are finding out they actually are. Partnerships with the National Rural Water Association and other groups have been key, he said, in helping those utilities think more about even simple cyber hygiene like multifactor authentication and resetting passwords.
And this new intelligence sharing effort will further boost that. It will bring together warnings, alerts, advisories and more from federal agencies like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI, as well as other groups who monitor the space for threats. Acting quickly on those threats is crucial, especially in the age of AI-driven hacks.
It's all about getting it out there so people can act on it before the damage keeps spreading out,” Dobbins said. “With AI, that speed factor is going to become even more critical in the years to come.”
The work doesn’t end here for the water sector and for WaterISAC, which was established after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to initially focus on physical security. Dobbins said it has been without federal funding to pay membership dues for its members for some time now. Even $2 million in new federal funds could help make up that shortfall, he said, calling for more money to pay for distance learning and education for members, as well as more “hands-on help.”
“I can see funding on several levels where we could benefit the water sector,” he said.