Mazen Adnan Dohaji, Vice President & General Manager, iMETA, Exabeam, explains that Saudi Arabia’s critical water scarcity combined with a surge in cyberattacks poses significant risks. As the country invests in new water infrastructure, protecting these assets from sophisticated cyber threats is essential to prevent disruptions and ensure a safe, reliable water supply.
The scarcity of water in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is a critical challenge that’s being heightened by rising cyberattacks. In a country where fresh water sources are limited, the essential nature of the resource makes it an attractive target to threat actors looking to cause serious disruption to operational technology (OT) systems.
Over recent years, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have seen a surge in water consumption due to economic growth, population increase, and urbanization. This is driving the need for new facilities and greater operational efficiencies, with the average water demand in the region estimated to rise to 33.7 million cubic meters over the next 25 years, according to Orient Planet Research. At the same time, Research and Markets reports that the KSA alone faces approximately 22.5 million cyberattacks annually.
Keeping the water industry secure will be a core focus for the region as cyberthreats become more sophisticated and the sector faces increased resource pressure. Water utilities need to balance the innovation and expansion of their infrastructure with the ever-growing threat landscape.
Critical Risks vs Critical Industries
The rise of cyberthreats poses a looming risk to the KSA, threatening future innovation. The country is currently investing in new infrastructure, such as desalination plants, as part of Saudi Vision 2030 to meet growing water demands.
At such a crucial time for industry innovation, security risks within water utilities are a growing concern. One key aspect of this is legacy OT system vulnerabilities. Older technologies often feature unsecured and open communication protocols, putting industrial control systems (ICS) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems at risk.
As the KSA embraces digital transformation, there is an increasing need for OT systems to modernize to interact with external Internet of Things (IoT) devices. However, when OT environments become more connected, this creates a larger attack surface for threat actors to exploit. Threat actors are taking advantage of new digital entry points within water utilities to compromise critical data, interfere with operations and even alter the chemical compound of water.
With such high stakes at risk, the water industry needs to make cybersecurity a top priority to establish a resilient future for one of the region’s most precious resources. Failure to do so could lead to public health emergencies, ecological damage, and erosion of public trust.
A Threat-Ready Foundation for Water Utilities
As OT environments become more connected, the risk of a successful breach increases. This presents water utilities with the significant challenge of providing service continuity while keeping persistent threats at bay.
Safeguarding the water industry requires a multifaceted security approach that implements security best practice, ensures regulatory compliance and arms security teams with advanced detection, protection, and mitigation capabilities. They need to build a secure foundation that prioritizes:
- Real-Time Visibility. Deploying a comprehensive security information and event management (SIEM) platform is an effective way for water utilities to gain real-time visibility into their IT environments and identify emerging security risks. The platform collects and analyses data from multiple sources, enabling analysts to gain a full picture of network activity. They benefit from the insights needed to investigate and shut down OT attacks before serious damage occurs.
- Rapid Threat Detection. With a dependable SIEM platform in place, water utilities gain the tools to improve their mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR) to OT attacks with advanced automation. Utilizing a SIEM that combinesmachine learning, machine data intelligence, and search analytics reduces the time it takes to discover threats, allowing water utilities to rapidly shut down attacks and effectively protect their operations.
- Comprehensive Compliance. On top ofreducing the risk of evolving cyberthreats, water utilities also need to ensure they are proactively addressing data and security regulations. A SIEM platform enables analysts to identify areas of non-compliance in real-time, leveraging investigations and alarms for immediate analysis of activities that impact their OT environments. In the KSA, this facilitates compliance requirements with the regulations set forth by The National Cybersecurity Authority to improve cybersecurity posture and safeguard the nation’s critical infrastructures.
- Security Awareness Training. Implementing and maintaining a regular training program is another essential way water utilities can keep employees up to date with the latest signs of attack. As employees interact daily with systems and data, it is crucial that they understand the processes for identifying and reporting suspicious activity. For example, when looking out for phishing attempts, employees should be aware of key indicators including grammatical/spelling errors, suspicious links and attachments, and unrecognized email addresses.
- Best Practice. Performing an assets inventory and enriching asset data with important information including its location, owner, and criticality provides water utilities with a strong foundation to prepare for future breaches. As well as this, regularly patching and backing up systems, deploying multi-factor authentication and setting up user access controls all contribute towards building greater cyber resilience for water utilities.
Securing the KSA’s Water Supply
As the KSA pursues its future digital initiatives and infrastructure expansions, safeguarding critical water systems against cyberthreats will become a bigger challenge. Ensuring water security is an ongoing effort. Solutions and strategies need to be in place to allow for effective monitoring and assessing potential threats.
By investing in robust cybersecurity measures, water utilities can protect themselves and those who rely on their services against advancing threats while continuing to evolve their operations.