When: June 22, 2022 4:30 PM ET
Where: R Street Institute, 1212 New York Avenue Northwest #900, Washington, DC 20005
A closer look at the sector’s cyber readiness, from the Biden administration’s 100-day sprint to the Oldsmar Water Treatment Facility hack
Featuring:
● [Moderator] Blake Sobczak, Editor-in-Chief, README and Head of Communications, Synack
● Tatyana Bolton, Policy Director, Cybersecurity and Emerging Threats, R Street Institute
● Rear Adm. (Ret) Mark Montgomery, Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and Senior Director, FDD’s Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation
● Gabriel Davis, Risk Operations Team Lead, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
●Tashya DeNose, Senior Cybersecurity Analyst Manager, Capital One and Director of Marketing, Black Girls in Cyber
On Feb. 5, 2021, a cybersecurity intruder accessed the software control functions of the Oldsmar Water Treatment Facility in Oldsmar, Fla., and boosted the level of lye in the water supply before it was caught by an operator. A year later, the Biden administration launched a 100-day sprint to address cybersecurity gaps in the water and wastewater systems sector, and there is an increased call to further the sector’s resiliency against cyber incidents that have great potential of public harm. Yet, it remains to be known where we are with the state of water cybersecurity and the recommended policies and operational techniques to close the gap. With approximately 52,000 drinking water and 16,000 wastewater systems across the country—and a large number are managed by third-party service providers due to limited in-house cybersecurity personnel in municipalities—the problem may be much deeper than it appears.
We invite you to an intimate, salon-style discussion about the current state of water cybersecurity, the cybersecurity workforce issues impacting critical sectors, the technical challenges, and recommended technical and policy recommendations to secure our drinking water and wastewater utilities. Join us as we kick off R Street and README_’s Cyber Policy Talk Series.
Refreshments will be provided after the panel.
