Unveiling the Crucial Role of Secure, Accurate Data in Water Treatment Operations
In the intricate domain of water and wastewater treatment, the significance of data transcends mere monitoring—it becomes the cornerstone of informed decision-making, cost reduction and operational excellence. From compliance adherence to predictive maintenance, the integration of telemetry data and analytics revolutionises how water treatment facilities operate.
The advent of IoT in the water and wastewater industry brings many benefits such as real time insight into plant performance, network dynamics, predictive maintenance and reduced costs by remotely reading and fine-tuning dosage in key areas; such as flow rates, pressure fluctuations, PH readings and turbidity levels. However, these technologies also bring their own set of problems. Principally, can you have 100% confidence in the data?
The Dangers of the Connected Network (IT/OT/IACS/IoT)
As part of the national critical infrastructure, and custodians of the nation’s drinking water, it is vital that the data that is being collected is known to be accurate and that when instructions are sent to remote pumps, valves and other connected equipment, that the instructions being received are indeed the instructions that were sent. With critical infrastructure increasingly becoming a target for state sponsored hackers it is imperative that neither connected equipment, nor the data, can be compromised.
Traditional Approach – Is this enough?
Typically, organisations have relied on a combination of firewalls and VPN technology to secure these connected devices. Unfortunately, they are not infallible, especially against more sophisticated threats and zero-day attacks. Recent incidents, such as those involving the Volt Typhoon campaign, demonstrate how attackers can exploit vulnerabilities in common security implementations, including VPNs. These attackers utilise “living off the land” techniques to bypass firewalls undetected by using legitimate tools and processes maliciously. Such tactics highlight the need for more comprehensive security measures that go beyond traditional firewalls.
This year alone we have seen successful attacks against all the major vendors including Fortinet, Cisco and Palo Alto Networks to name just a few.
The bottom line is a firewall will never stop a bad command to a dosing system, such as an instruction to dose 1,000 litres instead of 100.
Trusted Filter: A Trusted Solution
Trusted Filter from 4Secure turns this on its head by looking for ‘Known Good’. We know what should be getting through to the water network so we only let that through and make sure everything else is dropped.
Today this technology is used by Government and Defence and complies with NCSC guidelines and NIST II requirements.
To discuss this with on of our CNI security experts please call 0800 043 0101 or complete our contact form below.
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To discuss this with on of our CNI security experts please call 0800 043 0101 or complete our contact form:
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