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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchThe United States needs a coordinated, practical plan to help water and wastewater utilities prevent cyber incidents, keep essential services running, and recover safely when systems are disrupted. Cyber weaknesses in operational technology can affect pumps, valves, treatment processes, and the computer interfaces operators use to control them. That creates a public-health and continuity risk—but a vulnerability or intrusion does not automatically mean water was contaminated.
Why does the United States need a real plan to defend its water systems?
Water utilities depend on both information technology (IT)—such as business networks and email—and operational technology (OT), which monitors or controls physical processes. If an attacker gains access to OT or an exposed human-machine interface (HMI), the attacker may be able to view or change real-time process settings. Depending on the system and the response, an incident could interrupt treatment, distribution, or storage; damage pumps or valves; or manipulate chemical levels. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) describe these as potential consequences, not inevitable outcomes of every cyber incident.
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That distinction matters. A cyber incident can impair operations without contaminating water, and the existence of a vulnerability is not proof that anyone exploited it. The policy case for a plan is that utilities need repeatable ways to identify weaknesses, reduce exposure, maintain safe operations, and restore service—not that every utility has been breached.
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What the available numbers show—and what they do not
In 2024, the EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted a passive vulnerability assessment covering 1,062 drinking-water systems serving more than 193 million people. Scan results dated October 8, 2024, identified critical- or high-risk vulnerabilities at 97 of those assessed systems, serving approximately 26.6 million users. The same assessment identified medium- or low-risk externally visible open portals at 211 additional systems, serving more than 82.7 million people. These are findings from a defined assessment and scan date, not a census of all U.S. systems or evidence that the systems were compromised.
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Implementation of existing planning rules is also a concern. EPA reported in 2024 that more than 70% of the systems it had inspected since September 2023 violated basic requirements under Safe Drinking Water Act section 1433, including having missing sections in required risk and resilience assessments or emergency response plans. EPA also reported taking more than 100 section 1433 enforcement actions against community water systems since 2020. Those figures describe inspected systems and enforcement actions—not every water system in the country.
Can hackers contaminate drinking water?
A cyberattack could create conditions that affect water treatment or safe operation, including unauthorized changes to process settings. EPA and CISA warn that unsecured HMIs can permit unauthorized remote users to view or change real-time settings. Whether an incident affects water quality depends on what was accessed or changed, the utility’s safeguards, and how operators detect and respond. A scan finding, exposed portal, or attempted intrusion by itself does not establish that water was contaminated.
For the same reason, “a plant was hacked” does not describe one uniform outcome. An incident might affect administrative systems, disrupt a control system, or require operators to move to manual procedures. Utilities need plans for those different possibilities, including how to verify safe operating conditions and communicate with relevant authorities.
Who is responsible for water-system cybersecurity?
Responsibility is distributed. Utilities operate and secure their own systems. Federal and state agencies provide rules, guidance, technical assistance, and coordination; industry associations and other partners can support implementation and peer learning. A national plan should make those roles explicit rather than leaving each utility to navigate them alone.
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What the law already requires
Under Safe Drinking Water Act section 1433, as amended by section 2013 of the America’s Water Infrastructure Act in 2018, community water systems serving more than 3,300 people must conduct or revise a risk and resilience assessment (RRA), prepare an emergency response plan (ERP), and certify completion to EPA. The RRA covers electronic, computer, and other automated systems, which brings cybersecurity into the assessment. Covered systems must review these documents every five years, revise them if needed, and recertify.
This threshold-specific requirement is not a blanket statement that every water or wastewater utility has the same statutory obligations. Wastewater utilities and smaller systems have different circumstances; a national defense plan should account for that variation without blurring the scope of section 1433.
What existing federal work provides
EPA’s 2024 Water Sector Cybersecurity Roadmap was developed through a work group involving national associations, utilities, EPA, and CISA representatives. It reviews sector threats and vulnerabilities, identifies capability gaps, and lays out priority activity areas with near- and mid-term actions. In July 2025, EPA published Securing the Future of Water: Addressing Cyber Threats Today, calling for a holistic approach involving government, associations, and utilities. EPA’s October 2025 resource announcement described continued cooperation with CISA, state programs, and water associations.
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What should a real national plan do?
A workable plan should set a clear baseline, make risk assessment lead to repairs, provide practical help to utilities with limited staff, and establish a reliable way to coordinate during incidents. It should measure resilience improvements rather than count certifications alone.
1. Set a baseline that fits different utility capacities
Establish a common minimum for knowing what equipment and software a utility operates, limiting unnecessary internet exposure, using strong authentication, controlling vendor and remote access, keeping recoverable backups, and preparing for incident recovery. Implementation guidance should offer paths scaled to a utility’s size, technical capacity, and risks. A small system should not have to interpret a complex enterprise framework without hands-on assistance.
2. Treat assessment as the start of remediation
Cybersecurity should be a living part of utility risk and resilience work, covering both IT and OT. An assessment is useful only if the utility can prioritize findings, assign responsibility, and track corrective actions. The five-year review cycle under section 1433 sets a legal checkpoint for covered community systems; utilities should also maintain their risk picture as systems, vendors, and threats change.
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3. Make assistance and exercises accessible
EPA resources include assessment tools, third-party evaluations, technical assistance, incident-response templates, checklists, and exercises. A national plan should make those options easy to find and use, especially for small or resource-constrained systems. Peer learning and exercises can help utilities practice decisions that are difficult to improvise under pressure, such as who isolates a system, who contacts state and federal partners, and how operations are restored safely.
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4. Clarify incident reporting and coordination
In November 2024, the EPA OIG reported that EPA did not have its own cyber incident reporting system for water and wastewater systems. That is a dated OIG finding; the materials summarized here do not establish whether the gap has since been closed. A national plan should make the current reporting route clear to utilities and define how information moves among utilities, states, EPA, and CISA while protecting sensitive infrastructure details.
5. Use procurement to address supplier risk
Utilities depend on equipment manufacturers, software providers, integrators, and service vendors. EPA’s October 2025 procurement checklist offers a practical starting point for reviewing vendor and manufacturer security practices. Procurement guidance should help utilities ask about secure remote access, vulnerability handling, support lifetimes, and incident notification. EPA’s checklist is a resource for evaluation; it does not mean EPA certifies products.
6. Measure operational resilience
Proposed measures should show whether risk is being reduced, not merely whether paperwork exists. Useful indicators could include the share of assets inventoried, internet-facing exposures remediated, backups tested, time to report and recover, exercise participation, and completion of mitigation actions. These are suggested measures, not established federal targets.
What should a small water utility do first?
Start with the actions that reduce common exposure and make recovery possible. EPA’s May 2024 enforcement alert says that basic cyber hygiene can help utilities prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from cyber incidents. The following sequence turns that advice into manageable work.
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- Identify the systems that matter. Make an inventory of computers, control equipment, network connections, remote-access paths, and vendors who can connect. Include OT, not just office computers.
- Reduce avoidable exposure. Review whether control devices or HMIs are reachable from the public internet. Remove unnecessary exposure and restrict remote access to approved users and purposes.
- Secure accounts and access. Replace default passwords, remove unused accounts, and review vendor access. Make sure staff know who is authorized to change settings.
- Check for vulnerabilities and prioritize fixes. Use an assessment route the utility can support, then rank findings by operational risk and track who will address each one.
- Protect backups and practice recovery. Keep backups of important configurations and data, and test that they can be restored. Decide how the utility would continue or safely restore operations if systems were unavailable.
- Train staff and rehearse the response. Make sure operators and managers know how to recognize and report a suspected incident, who makes operational decisions, and how to coordinate with relevant partners.
EPA’s Water Cybersecurity Assessment Tool provides a free self-assessment route. EPA also offers its Water Sector Cybersecurity Evaluation Program, which uses third-party assessments. EPA identifies both options, but the available materials do not establish comparative performance, cost to the utility, or that either route is best for every system.
| Assessment route | What is established | What a utility should weigh |
|---|---|---|
| EPA Water Cybersecurity Assessment Tool | Free self-assessment tool, according to EPA. | Whether staff have time and expertise to assess IT and OT, interpret findings, and follow through on fixes; independence and depth are not stated in the materials summarized here. |
| EPA Water Sector Cybersecurity Evaluation Program | EPA offers a third-party assessment pathway. | Whether the assessment fits the utility’s needs and access to OT expertise; comparative performance and cost to the utility are not stated in the materials summarized here. |
Whichever route a utility chooses, it should be able to turn findings into prioritized work and follow-up. An assessment without a remediation plan can identify exposure without reducing it.
How should decision-makers judge a proposed national plan?
There is no single design choice that resolves every trade-off. Policymakers should test a proposal against the following questions before treating it as an actionable plan:
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- Coverage: Does it account for both large and small systems, and distinguish drinking-water requirements from the circumstances of wastewater utilities?
- Ownership: Does it state what utilities, states, EPA, CISA, and support organizations are expected to do, including during an incident?
- Implementation: Are expectations enforceable, voluntary, or a combination—and is that distinction clear?
- Resources: Is there sustainable support for technical assistance, remediation, training, and exercises?
- Information protection: Does reporting and measurement protect sensitive infrastructure data while still enabling coordination?
- Evidence of improvement: Can the public and utilities see whether exposure is being reduced and recovery readiness is improving?
EPA Assistant Administrator for Water Jess Kramer said in the agency’s October 23, 2025 announcement: “Strengthening cybersecurity for the U.S. water sector is critically important because cyber resilience and water security are key to national security. Water systems across the country are facing cyberattacks that threaten the ability to provide safe water.” The policy challenge is to translate that urgency into clear responsibilities, practical support, and measurable gains in operational resilience.
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