Cybersecurity for Energy and Water Utilities

The ongoing digitalization poses new challenges to the secure and stable operation of energy supply, water supply, and wastewater treatment facilities. An increasing number of decentralized devices are collecting and transmitting data. Systems for the generation, distribution, storage, and use of energy are becoming increasingly interconnected. As a result, IT and OT security are becoming key factors in ensuring a reliable supply.

The classification of parts of the energy and water supply systems as Critical Infrastructure (KRITIS) tightens the legal requirements for their operation. This includes all pipeline-based supply and disposal structures (electricity, gas, water, wastewater), the responsible companies, and the overarching IT networking of the facilities, including their components and networks. These systems are particularly vulnerable: increasing automation, more decentralized generation, the use of legacy systems, and the potentially far-reaching consequences of an attack all heighten the risk.

Our Cyber Security Assessment helps organisations to assess their own security standards in IT and ICS/OT systems and to improve them in a targeted manner.

Our experts identify vulnerabilities, assess your current threat landscape using state-of-the-art methods and the latest research findings, and recommend specific measures to ensure the availability and reliability of your business processes.

Key content:

• Concept assessment: Review of security concepts against standards, guidelines and best practices.
• Network security analysis: Assessment of confidentiality, integrity and availability based on known vulnerabilities and attack vectors.
• Penetration testing: Realistic testing of your IT systems, with a detailed report and recommendations for action.
• Hardware and configuration testing: analysis of misconfigurations, assessment of protection mechanisms and support with implementation.
• Security Awareness: Building, maintaining and measuring your employees’ security awareness.

With proactive cybersecurity, you can identify risks at an early stage, improve attack detection and stay one step ahead of the next wave of attacks.

Our cybersecurity training courses at the Cybersecurity Learning Lab offer a comprehensive introduction to the protection of energy and water supply infrastructure: they combine awareness and compliance requirements with practical insights into attack vectors and the hardening of networks and systems.