"Developing Cybersecurity Solutions for Industrial Infrastructures"
The US Homeland Security Department's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) reports that there are about 153,000 public drinking water systems and over 16,000 publicly owned wastewater treatment systems in the US. Therefore, a cyberattack on these systems could result in service interruptions, damage to critical infrastructure, and even illness and death. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, has developed and implemented a cost-effective cyber-physical security situational awareness capability for Industrial Control Systems (ICS) at the Cranberry Water Treatment plant in Westminster, Maryland. The technology is designed to detect and notify operators of malicious activity, including unauthorized access, malicious code, and data exfiltration. In addition, it provides a comprehensive view of the system's health and performance, enabling operators to quickly identify and resolve any problems. This solution integrates network fingerprinting, host-based monitoring, digital twin technology, and advanced event correlation and alerting to provide system operators with a comprehensive understanding of their systems. This article continues to discuss the development of the cost-effective cyber-physical security situational awareness capability for ICS and its testing at the Cranberry Water Treatment plant in Westminster, Maryland.