官员和水部门专业人士警告说，在参议院听证会上，该国水和废水公用事业基础设施正在进行的网络安全脆弱性，该听证会因对美国公用事业和水管理组织的网络攻击升级。

“我相信下一个珍珠港，接下来的9/11将是网络，我们在所有系统中都面临着脆弱性，但水是最关键的，我认为最脆弱的人之一。”。

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R -Wis.) said in his testimony before the committee that 44.8% of U.S. water and wastewater utilities allocate less than 1% of their budget to the cybersecurity of their operational technologies. “This leaves the water sector vulnerable to nation, state, and criminal adversaries and insider threats and gives them the ability to disrupt our critical infrastructure,” he said.

Challenges to the water sector range from maintaining awareness of threats to assessing risks to identifying and remediating vulnerabilities. And a shortage of qualified cybersecurity professionals across the country compounds the problems, Gallagher said. King, Gallagher, committee Chairman Ben Cardin (D -Md.), and ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) all noted that the recent cyber intrusion at a water plant in Oldsmar, Fla., was typical of the type of threat the water sector faces.

波士顿水和下水道委员会首席工程师约翰·沙利文（John Sullivan）在委员会面前说，虽然他的组织资金充足，并且已经成功地抵御了网络入侵而没有支付赎金，但在较大水之间的资金和技术差距都差距公用事业和运营商以及由较小的政府机构运营的运营商都是巨大的。波士顿水和下水道委员会是新英格兰最大，最古老的水系统，每天为超过100万人提供饮用水和下水道服务。沙利文说：“较大的城市能够负担得起，但需要更多信息，需要更多的及时信息。”“当您到达较小的政府单位时，还有许多其他问题争夺资源。”

沙利文说，许多系统经理对安全问题没有意识，许多当地市政当局需要资金来替代过时的系统。他补充说，转向更新的水系统管理技术并从事最佳实践将有助于水部门经理更好地理解和抵御网络安全威胁。

Sen. Moore Capito observed that the average age of water industry professionals is over 50 and that newer recruits look at cybersecurity differently. Sullivan and several other speakers echoed the fact that most professionals in the water management sector are of an older generation. Moore Capito said she expects the committee will include cybersecurity policies in a prospective water bill, which she said the committee is beginning work on.

“We’re not just going to rely on smart people [who] sit in their chair for 40 years and become super experts,” says Colby Manwaring, CEO of Innovyze, a cloud-based water and wastewater systems management and optimization technology firm recently acquired by Autodesk.

Manwaring告诉ENR，新利18备用技术升级可以释放员工的时间，以更好地专注于水系统面临的挑战，而不仅仅是网络安全。

他说：“我们想自动化那些重复的，有点可预测的任务，这些任务花费了聪明的人的时间，因此他们可以提出创新的解决方案，最终从手动问题解决到半手机到自动。”“我认为我们不会很快就在水行业解决问题。”