From: Water World
RIDGEFIELD, CT, Feb. 21, 2014 — A major U.S. water utilities system recently selected Owl Computing Technologies, Inc., a network security solutions provider, for the deployment of an electronic security perimeter to mitigate external cyber vulnerabilities.
The water utilities system is one of the largest water service providers in the southeastern United States, serving over 800,000 customers. To assess risk, the utility conducted tests to identify the components of their utilities — pumps, generators and SCADA system — that would be vulnerable to external cyber threats.
The result was the isolation of a control network that included a pumping station operating at an average of 65,000,000 million gallons per day. This isolation mitigated cyber-attack vulnerabilities but created operational inefficiencies due to the elimination of plant operating data being made available to key personnel on the corporate network.
Accordingly, the utility recognized its valuable role as one of sixteen critical infrastructure industries identified in Presidential Policy Directive 21: Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience. The water utility also wanted to operate efficiently and sought a solution that would protect the plant operating network and provide an efficient way for control system data to be shared with the corporate network.
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