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Keeping the Water On: Cybersecurity for Municipal Water Systems

11 AM EDT | November 24, 2026

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Keeping a municipal water system safe and flowing now depends on computers as much as on pumps and pipes. A cyberattack on the control systems behind a municipal water system can disrupt treatment, change water quality, and cut off service to residents. The session explains, in plain terms, how these attacks happen, where a water system is most exposed, and the practical steps that keep it protected, from separating networks and securing remote access to monitoring, planning for incidents, and following the recognized water-sector standards: ISA/IEC 62443, NIST, and CISA.

 

What you’ll learn:

  • Why a municipal water system is a target for cyberattacks.
  • What runs your water system behind the scenes: the control-room software, the controllers, the sensors, and the networks that tie them together, plus the growing overlap between office computers and plant systems.
  • How an attacker who changes settings like chemical dosing or treatment can affect how the system runs, and the safety of the water.
  • How to protect a water system with separated networks, firewalls built for industrial equipment, secure remote access, monitoring, and one-way data connections.
  • How to put the recognized water-sector cybersecurity standards (ISA/IEC 62443, NIST, and CISA) to work in a real municipal water system.
  • How to spot an attack, respond to it, and recover, while keeping safe water flowing to residents.
Frits van Rooij, Ph.D., Systems Engineer/Integrator OT Manager

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Why join

A cyberattack on your water system can change the chemical dosing or treatment and send unsafe water to the people you serve. Most standard office-security plans don't account for that.

Outside vendors and staff often reach your controls remotely, and weak protection on those connections is one of the easiest ways in.

The controllers running your treatment, pumps, and dosing are often too old to patch like office computers, so you need other safeguards that hold up on a system running day and night.

Residents, regulators, and funding bodies expect you to meet recognized security standards, and your water has to keep flowing safely even when the control room or communications go down.

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