91% of US water utilities lack protection — Water Watch Center launches

The National Rural Water Association (NRWA) and DEF CON Franklin, a spin-off of the DEF CON conference, have launched the Water Watch Center, a cybersecurity initiative for small U.S. water utilities serving fewer than 10,000 people. The program aims to shield these systems from a growing wave of hacker attacks.

The U.S. has over 50,000 community water systems, and 91% of them serve small communities. The center will offer threat monitoring and cybersecurity services through five firms specializing in managed detection and response.

The partners include Rapid7, Defendify, Legato Security, L1 Secure, and Sentinel Technologies. They will share threat intelligence and vulnerability patch data with NRWA, which will act as a coordination hub. Jake Braun, co-founder of DEF CON Franklin and a former cyber official in the Biden administration, said these companies already support water utilities and understand the specifics of their infrastructure.

Braun noted that Franklin volunteers will help keep costs down for budget-strapped utilities facing adversaries like Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or the Chinese military. He added that together with NRWA, the firms are building a scalable cyber defense model that the water industry and national security officials have failed to create so far.

The launch comes amid a rise in cyberattacks on water systems across multiple states. Earlier this year, hackers targeted water facilities in Texas, Pennsylvania, and Kansas, prompting federal agencies to pay closer attention to this sector.