November marks Infrastructure Security Month (ISM). The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) annual awareness campaign is intended to highlight the vital role critical infrastructure plays in the nation’s safety, security, and prosperity and why it is important to strengthen critical infrastructure security and resilience.
As U.S. technology companies race to build and compete in the 21st century, many firms find themselves constructing more and more data centers as the demands of the virtual world continue to expand. Data centers, however, use a lot of water, with a single facility able to go through millions of gallons of water per day to keep equipment from overheating.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) just published its State of the Global Climate 2021: WMO Provisional report. The study, which is based on data for the first nine months of 2021, examines greenhouse gas concentrations, temperature levels, the state of the oceans, precipitation, and more. Regarding sea levels, for instance, “the rate of global sea level rise has increased since satellite altimeter measurements began in 1993, reaching 4.4 mm/yr between 2013 and 2021. Global mean sea level reached a new record high in 2021,” according to the study.
A consortium of public and private organizations has launched a new online platform that uses satellite data from NASA to show levels of water evaporation into the atmosphere in the western U.S., providing a tool that can be used by water managers to increase the resilience of water supplies. The platform, OpenET, provides data for 17 western states for the current year and previous five years that is easy to view and download; it’s also available at no charge.
Imagine a hurricane hits a small town sending the community into emergency response, during response efforts the town’s water utility is unable to provide service not because of the storm but because of an opportunistic cyber-attack. Although fictional, many are thinking about the potential for this scenario and the cascading effects it could bring. Today’s digitally interconnected world and the electronically reliant infrastructure society relies upon introduces new threats to consider and provides an expanded attack surface for threat actors to exploit.
Drought conditions, which are currently affecting around 40 percent of the continental U.S., will likely persist and develop in the Southwest and Southern Plains, according to a winter weather forecast recently released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). And drought conditions are expected to improve in the Pacific Northwest, northern California, the upper Midwest, and Hawaii. Below-average temperatures are likely for southeast Alaska and the Pacific Northwest eastward to the northern Plains. Meanwhile, the South and much of the eastern U.S.
WaterISAC has been invited to join peers, MS-ISAC, Communications ISAC, Electricity ISAC (E-ISAC), and the Oil and Natural Gas ISAC (ONG-ISAC) to speak on a panel at the 5th Annual Security and Risk Management Symposium on November 4, 2021.
Panel Title: ‘Nationally Critical Infrastructure – an ISAC Perspective’
The Global Challenges Foundation recently released its annual report on what it assesses to be the greatest risks facing humanity in the 21st century, calling attention to a series of potential catastrophic scenarios that necessitate and inform preparedness activities. The report, Global Catastrophic Risks 2021: Navigating the Complex Intersections, identifies ten major existential risks and divides them into three categories: current risks from human action, natural catastrophes, and emerging risks.
On Tuesday, California Governor Gavin Newsom extended a drought emergency proclamation across the entire state amid California’s second driest year ever recorded. With a potential third year of drought on the horizon, the declaration calls for Californians to voluntary reduce their water use by 15 percent and authorizes the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services to provide aid and relief funding for locales facing water shortages. The proclamation also requires water utilities to implement water shortage contingency plans at “a level appropriate to local conditions.”
Today is the “Great ShakeOut,” a time when people and organizations around the world are encouraged to participate in an earthquake drill that involves the steps of “Drop! Cover! Hold On!” As the event organizers remind us, it’s important to hold drills like this and rehearse important actions because there may only be seconds to protect yourself in an earthquake, before strong shaking knocks you down or something drops on you.
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