Srinivas Panguluri
Shaw Environmental, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio.
William R. Phillips, Jr.
CH2M-Hill, Gainesville, Florida
Robert M. Clark
Environmental Engineering and Public Health
Consultant, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Advances in computer technologies, especially during the 1990s, have helped water utilities automate several aspects of their water supply, distribution, and information management systems. Post 9/11, security vulnerabilities and threat assessments have led water utilities to invest in improving the physical security of their infrastructure. Although the improvements in physical security are essential, they can lead to a false sense of safety. In the age of digital interconnections, operations at even the most physically secure site can be disrupted with relative ease through digital backdoors. A cyber attack has been defined as a computer-to-computer attack that undermines the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of a computer or information resident in it (O Shea, 2003). This strict definition excludes direct system attacks by an unauthorized individual who has obtained physical access to that machine. Protection is just as important against the most obvious means such as an individual using the keyboard of an unattended, but logged-on main computer, or by inserting a CD with an embedded virus launches an attack directly on the main system.
The computer system infrastructure of a medium to large water utility typically includes its financial system, Human Resource (HR) system, Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system, Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS), etc. The financial, HR, LIMS, and CMMS systems are considered to...
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