Federal watchdog urges EPA to develop comprehensive cyber strategy to protect water systems

The congressional watchdog is calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to urgently develop a strategy to address the rising risk of malicious cyber activity targeting the nation’s drinking and wastewater, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office released last week.

In recent months, the sector has been up against heightened threat activity from state-linked and criminal hackers targeting vulnerable water utilities using custom malware, ransomware and other tools designed to either disable, sabotage or exfiltrate data.

The EPA needs to conduct a sector-wide risk assessment, the GAO said, because the water utility sector is unprepared to protect itself against these existing threats without additional government support.