New York to Require Cybersecurity for Water Systems – Smartly
Both drinking water and waste water systems in New York will have to comply with new cybersecurity rules by the end of the year with new state laws that are going into effect.
In the grand scheme of things, these changes are pretty basic, but you may remember that the EPA tried to implement cybersecurity rules for water systems at the federal level under the last administration, but the water utilities fought it because they did not want to spend the money and there really is no penalty if they are hacked. The water might go off and they would have to fix that, but there is no major cost.
So, as often is the case, the states have to fill the gap.
At the EPA level, they tried to do it by regulation. That is what New York is doing too, so it is possible that the water utilities in New York might fight this too.
But New York’s regulation has some very significant differences.
First, what they are doing. The regulation will require mandatory cybersecurity training (really? They have to require this? That scares me by itself). It will also require incident response plans, reporting requirements and a designated cyber lead for larger water utilities.
The regulations only apply to water utilities that serve at least 3,300 people. “Larger” utilities means 50,000 people or more.
So what is different from the EPA’s regulation.
The state has created a grant fund of $2.5 million. Not a lot, but it could help.
More importantly, the state is offering FREE TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE. This was probably the biggest complaint with the EPA rule. How do we pay for it. By giving away technical assistance for free, you eliminate a reason to complain.
The grants include $50,000 grants to do cybersecurity assessments and $100,000 grants to fix what the assessments find. That, combined with free assistance, should soften the blow.
New York says this is part of a sector by sector plan to improve cybersecurity at critical infrastructure.
So we will see what happens. Credit: The Record
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