The Indiana Office of Technology (IOT) and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) are expanding IOT’s existing partnership with Purdue University and Indiana University (IU), called CyberTrack, to now provide cybersecurity assessments for water and wastewater treatment facilities.
Under the arrangement, Purdue’s cyberTAP and IU’s Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research (CACR) staff and students analyze the cybersecurity posture of local government entities and provide a blueprint on how they can further secure their environments. Previously, the agreement was limited only to local governments.
“Indiana governments and our water providers are constantly under cyberattacks and anything we can do to better our responses is needed,” said Indiana Chief Information Officer Tracy Barnes in a press release. “Our partnership over the past two years with Purdue University and Indiana University has been incredibly beneficial to the nearly 100 local governments that have taken part in the cybersecurity assessments. Water facilities are frequently being targeted, and it’s important that we provide them with clear direction on how to improve their cybersecurity.”
Federal regulators acknowledge cyberattacks against public water and wastewater systems are increasing. Sound cybersecurity practices are critical to helping prevent, detect, respond, and recover from cyber incidents. While many water and wastewater systems serving larger customer bases have dedicated staff and practices around cybersecurity, smaller utilities may not have as many abundant resources to deal with cyberattacks.
“We strongly encourage Indiana drinking water and wastewater utilities to take advantage of this opportunity,” said IDEM Commissioner Brian Rockensuess in a press release. “Safeguarding the integrity of public utility infrastructure is vital to ensuring safe, clean water for Hoosiers. IDEM is excited about this partnership, which will help water systems identify vulnerabilities and implement practices to deter and respond to potential threats.”
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), these attacks can potentially disrupt the critical lifeline of clean and safe drinking water and impose significant costs on affected communities.
Cybertrack is designed to put local governments and water & wastewater systems in contact with top tier cybersecurity experts and provide them with practical, prioritized advice about doable, powerful cybersecurity fundamentals.
The agreement was initially announced in October 2022 to fund both universities to develop and conduct a cybersecurity assessment methodology for local government that incorporates evaluations from the Trusted CI, CIS (Center for Internet Security) and NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) frameworks. Overseen by IOT, the universities will complete at least 342 assessments through 2026. So far, the universities have completed nearly 100 assessments on behalf of local governments.
In addition to the no-cost cybersecurity assessments, IOT offers many other services for no-cost or low-cost to help improve local government cybersecurity and digital government offerings. In October, IOT announced that it now offers the same modern, citizen-tested website templates state agencies use to local governments at no-cost websites.
