West Virginia Press Association
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The Office of Environmental Health Services (OEHS) within the West Virginia Department of Health’s (DH) Bureau for Public Health is working with local water systems to reduce the risk of cyberattacks on public water and wastewater systems in West Virginia. Common goals of these cyberattacks may be to disrupt treatment and distribution, compromise email communication, steal customer data, or install malware or ransomware that could disable process controls.
“Recently, there have been a number of cyberattacks throughout the country targeting vulnerabilities within water systems,” explained Dr. Matthew Christiansen, DH State Health Officer. “Water systems can reduce their risk by updating computer equipment regularly, using secure passwords and resetting them regularly, requiring employee training to safeguard against an attack, and ensuring clean drinking water is provided to residents.”
OEHS is also partnering with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to inform local systems about the availability of free cyber security assessments. Those interested can click here to register. In addition to EPA resources, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) offers free resources:https://www.cisa.gov/.