Cybersecurity Webinar
- Watch the webinar recording (August 29, 2023)
- Small Drinking Water Systems Webinar Series
About the Webinar
1. Tools and Resources to Help Your Small Systems Build Cyber Resilience
This presentation provided utilities with information on freely available resources and funding opportunities that utilities can take advantage of to reduce the threat of cyber attacks.
Presenter: Nushat Thomas, M.S., EPA’s Office of Water. Nushat is chief of the Cybersecurity Branch within EPA’s Office of Water, Office of Water Ground Water and Drinking Water, Water Infrastructure and Cyber Resilience Division, where she leading a team of cybersecurity analysts to ensure water and wastewater systems are prepared to respond and recover from cyber incidents. She joined EPA in 2009 as a member of both the Communications and Interdependencies Team and the Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Team. Before joining EPA, she was employed as an environmental analyst responsible for managing the environmental compliance programs and permits at the Potomac River coal-fired generating plant. Prior to this, she served on active duty in the U.S. Army as an environmental science engineering officer at Fort Bragg, NC, where she served as chief of the installations’ Environmental Health Section. She continues to serve within the District of Columbia Army National Guard.
2. Water Distribution System Operational Technology Cybersecurity Research at the Water Security Test Bed
This presentation discussed EPA’s first-of-its-scale water security test bed, which replicates a section of a typical municipal drinking water piping system. This EPA-developed test bed evaluates infrastructure and premise plumbing decontamination technologies and mobile emergency water treatment systems. Future research will focus on prevention, mitigation, and quick return-to-service of distribution system operational technology hardware and software compromised by cyber attacks.
Presenter: Jeff Szabo, Ph.D., P.E., EPA's Office of Research and Development. Jeff is an environmental engineer with EPA's Office of Research and Development, Center for Environmental Solutions and Emergency Response. He conducts and manages water security research projects at EPA’s Test and Evaluation facility and the Water Security Test Bed at the Idaho National Lab. These projects include examining chemical, biological, and radiological contaminant persistence on drinking water and wastewater infrastructure and evaluation of decontamination and water treatment methods.