NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — The city of Newport News is making a multi-million dollar effort to protect the safety of the water supplied to the city and beyond as states across the country work to fend off cyber attacks.
Turning on the faucet to get some water is something many people probably take for granted, but Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones is not one of them.
“We’ve allocated over $6 million last quarter to ensure that we have the proper IT infrastructure in place. Additionally, we’ve appointed a CIO and a CTO to make sure that we can streamline all of our systems," Jones said.
Watch: Sweeping cyberattack on water systems in multiple states has officials on edge
On July 30 the FBI and EPA released a statement saying, in part, "...malicious cyber actors (MCAs) are conducting cyber attacks targeting Operational Technology (OT) devices.” It goes on to say since July 27 water and wastewater utility companies in at least seven states had been attacked and some of the attacks impacted water operations.
“The most important thing from the FBI’s press release is to ensure that our control systems are not exposed to the internet, that they’re actually more analog instead of digital. That’s what we’ve done over the last month," Jones explained.
The city’s water is controlled by Newport News waterworks, which also controls the water for most of the peninsula. That means close to a half million people could be impacted if there were to be a cyber attack here.
Watch: Attacks on water systems could disrupt services for consumers, first responders and the military
News 3 reached out to Newport News Waterworks for a statement on the city’s new effort. A spokesperson outlined several security steps being taken and said “Waterworks has implemented a multi-layered security framework designed to prevent unauthorized access and protect critical infrastructure operations.”
Scripps News Group Chief Washington Correspondent Joe St. George talked with Lauryn Williams, a cybersecurity analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She said while the U.S. hadn’t had any major issues at the time, it could happen.
Watch: Cyberattacks on US water systems raise alarms, but Congress faces hurdles on a fix
“It is certainly the way country’s wage war in the twenty first century," Williams said.
As of Wednesday, who was behind the recent cyber attacks was unclear.
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