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Yes—ageing pipes, treatment equipment and control systems can interrupt a company’s water supply, while a cyberattack can disrupt plant operations or force unsafe manual work. In the United States, the physical renewal backlog and exposure of legacy operational technology (OT) make water security a continuity and resilience issue, not only a utility concern.

Why water security is a business-continuity risk

Most businesses do not control the public water network, yet many depend on it for process water, sanitation, cooling, fire protection, food production, clinical services and employee facilities. A break, contamination event or treatment-plant outage can stop production and logistics even when a company’s own information systems are functioning normally.

The cyber risk is equally practical. An intruder who gains access to a water utility’s information technology (IT) or OT may deny operators access, alter settings, interrupt pumping or treatment, or force staff to operate equipment manually. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says cyberattacks can disrupt operations, compromise water quality and cause substantial economic losses. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) warns that successful attacks can also harm public health or the environment.

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How physical deterioration and cyber exposure compound

The ageing physical layer

Deteriorating distribution mains, treatment works, storage tanks, intakes, pumps and valves increase the likelihood of leaks, pressure loss, outages, contamination exposure and emergency repairs. A utility that is already operating with little redundancy has fewer options when a component fails or must be isolated after an incident.

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The legacy control layer

Older supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), programmable logic controller and other OT equipment may not support modern security protocols or current software. Unsupported devices, default credentials, flat networks and unnecessary internet exposure create pathways from an attacker’s initial access to operational functions. EPA identifies incompatibility between legacy OT and modern IT security as a specific challenge.

The operational consequence

An attack does not have to change a chemical dose or open a valve to cause damage. Losing visibility, authentication or remote control can require a plant to switch to manual operation, reduce throughput or shut down while operators verify conditions. If physical assets are also fragile, the same incident can produce longer restoration times and more difficult maintenance.

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The business consequence

Water-dependent manufacturing, food and beverage processing, healthcare, hospitality, agriculture, semiconductor production, energy and logistics can face downtime, emergency water purchases, missed deliveries, regulatory exposure and reputational damage. These are business implications of the documented service-disruption mechanism, not a published national loss rate for any particular industry.

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How large is the U.S. investment gap?

Federal needs estimates show why reliability cannot be solved with cybersecurity spending alone. They measure infrastructure investment over a 20-year period, not an annual bill.

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System or estimate Published need Scope and source
Drinking-water infrastructure $625 billion over 20 years EPA’s 7th Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey, published in 2023 and updated in 2026
Distribution and transmission within drinking-water systems $422.9 billion Component of the EPA drinking-water estimate, 2023/updated 2026
Wastewater, stormwater and related clean-water systems At least $630 billion over 20 years EPA’s 2022 Clean Watersheds Needs Survey, reported in 2024
U.S. infrastructure across 11 sectors Nearly $7.4 trillion from 2024 through 2033 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) 2024 analysis

ASCE links inadequate infrastructure with weaker business productivity and gross domestic product. For a company, that means water reliability is connected to regional infrastructure condition, financing and maintenance decisions beyond its own site.

Can a cyberattack shut down a water-treatment plant?

It can, depending on the attacker’s access, the plant’s design and the availability of manual procedures. An attacker may block operator accounts, disrupt communications, manipulate process controls or trigger protective shutdowns. Even when operators detect the intrusion before water quality is affected, isolating compromised systems and validating readings can halt or slow treatment.

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That possibility is why EPA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issue baseline actions rather than relying on a single technology product. Their February 21, 2024 fact sheet calls on water-sector entities to:

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  • Reduce exposure to the public-facing internet.
  • Conduct regular cybersecurity assessments.
  • Change default passwords immediately.
  • Conduct an inventory of OT and IT assets.
  • Develop and exercise cybersecurity incident-response and recovery plans.
  • Back up OT and IT systems.
  • Reduce exposure to vulnerabilities.
  • Conduct cybersecurity awareness training.

These controls lower the chance that an exposed or obsolete device becomes an operational pathway, and they improve recovery when prevention fails.

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Which U.S. water systems have a defined assessment duty?

Under Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) section 1433, created by America’s Water Infrastructure Act (AWIA) section 2013, community water systems serving more than 3,300 people must include electronic, computer and other automated systems—including the security of those systems—in their risk and resilience assessments. EPA describes this requirement on its assessment guidance page. It is a U.S. obligation for qualifying systems; it should not be presented as a universal legal rule for businesses or utilities in other countries.

What a utility or industrial site should do first

  1. Map dependencies. Record every utility connection, process-water loop, wastewater discharge, storage asset, emergency source, remote-access route and third-party operator. Identify which production steps fail first if pressure, quality or flow is lost.
  2. Inventory OT and IT. List controllers, engineering workstations, sensors, servers, remote-access tools, firmware versions, owners and network connections. Remove unnecessary public exposure, especially direct internet access to management interfaces.
  3. Replace default credentials. Change factory passwords immediately, enforce unique credentials and use stronger identity and access controls for employees, vendors and service accounts. Disable accounts that no longer have a business purpose.
  4. Assess repeatedly. Run recurring cybersecurity assessments and prioritize exploitable weaknesses on systems that can affect treatment, pumping, storage or discharge. Qualifying U.S. community water systems should include automated-system security in their required risk and resilience assessments.
  5. Separate and protect networks. Segment OT from corporate IT and restrict traffic to the minimum required for operations. Segmentation is a prudent implementation detail; the federal fact sheet’s explicit direction is to reduce exposure and vulnerabilities.
  6. Back up and restore. Keep offline or otherwise protected copies of configurations, programs, credentials and critical business data. Test restoration so a backup is usable during ransomware, hardware failure or a controlled shutdown.
  7. Exercise the response. Rehearse detection, isolation, notification, manual operation and recovery with plant staff, the water utility, suppliers and emergency authorities. Include scenarios in which communications or remote access are unavailable.
  8. Fund physical renewal with cyber work. Pair security projects with replacement of failing pipes, pumps, treatment equipment and storage assets. A hardened control network cannot deliver dependable service if the physical process has no reliable capacity or redundancy.

How to compare resilience programs

The 2024 water-sector roadmap organizes improvement around threats, vulnerabilities, capability gaps and priority actions. A practical comparison should examine four dimensions rather than rank vendors or technologies:

Dimension Questions to ask
Service continuity How long can the site operate with reduced flow, poor pressure, a failed connection or manual control?
Cyber maturity Are OT and IT inventoried, externally exposed systems minimized, credentials controlled, vulnerabilities managed and recovery tested?
Physical asset condition Which pipes, pumps, treatment units, tanks and intakes are at highest failure risk, and is there redundancy?
Governance and financing capacity Who owns each dependency, who can authorize emergency action, and is funding available for both renewal and security?

What the evidence does—and does not—show

The federal assessments establish a large U.S. infrastructure need, documented cyber weaknesses and credible operational, quality, environmental and economic consequences. They do not establish one national percentage of private businesses that have lost service specifically because ageing infrastructure and a cyberattack occurred together. Companies should therefore use dependency mapping and scenario exercises to estimate their own exposure instead of applying an unsupported industry-wide loss figure.

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