The Trump administration rolled out a six-month test program in Texas on Monday that will draw on volunteer expertise and technology from cyber and artificial intelligence companies to protect the water sector.
“Project Watershed 250” is the first of the state-based, industry-centric pilot projects to cross the finish line that the Office of the National Cyber Director has previewed since the publication of its national cybersecurity strategy earlier this year. Water systems have long been viewed as among the most vulnerable and neediest critical infrastructure sectors, and in recent months the sector has been the victim of a spree of attacks.
“Project Watershed 250 is a commitment from the states, industry and federal government that we will continue to prioritize our nation’s safety and deliver on America-first policies for the American people,” National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross said at a rollout event in San Antonio Monday.
“U.S. companies are providing world-class cyber capabilities, red teaming that tests utilities’ current defenses, system hardening using the latest private sector cyber tools and AI tooling that helps utilities’ frontier cyber defenders to protect Texas water systems and scale proven solutions across the country,” he said. “This six-month pilot program is designed to make our water and wastewater critical infrastructure more resilient and resistant to cyber attacks by proactively finding and fixing system weaknesses.”
The pilot program, featuring collaboration between federal and state governments, stands in contrast to how the Biden administration tried to tackle the issue, with audit requirements that some GOP states challenged in court, forcing Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw its rule.
“For too long, at least on the federal level, the government has admired the problem of cybersecurity in water systems,” Cairncross said. “We are going to find out what works. We’re going to target that, and we are going to scale off of this and learn lessons.”
A dozen companies — Parsons, Microsoft, Fortinet, Google Cloud, Palo Alto Networks, Amazon Web Services, Reflection AI, Cloudflare, Zscaler, Forescout, Abnormal AI and Dragos — appeared at the rollout Monday to praise the initiative and tout their contributions to it.