The National Rural Water Association and Water Information Sharing and Analysis Center (WaterISAC) recently announced a formal cybersecurity collaboration. With this partnership, WaterISAC and NRWA will work to educate rural utilities across the country about cyber and physical security issues and how they can become more resilient.   

"NRWA is dedicated to fully supporting our members in all aspects of providing safe and clean water to their communities," says NRWA CEO Matt Holmes. "This partnership will bring even more resources to our smallest members, who often have the fewest resources to combat cyber and physical security threats."

Tom Dobbins, executive director of WaterISAC, says his organization is honored to work with an association the caliber of the NRWA to help its members enhance their cyber and physical security.  "As we have seen in recent months, threat actors are attacking physically and especially via the internet, the operations of utilities of all kinds around the country."

The agreement covers approximately 25,000 members of NRWA who service populations of 3,300 or fewer. "While NRWA currently provides cyber and physical security training to small water utilities, this collaboration will bring even more resources and expertise to our members," says NRWA President John O'Connell.

John Sullivan, chairman of the WaterISAC Board of Managers, adds that "WaterISAC is pleased to be able to bring its wealth of information and resources to our nation's smallest water utilities, as it has done for over 20 years for our largest utilities." 

Eligible NRWA members will receive WaterISAC's Security Resilience Update. This twice-weekly newsletter is a comprehensive information source on cyber and physical threats to its utilities. In addition, those members will also have access to WaterISAC's monthly Threat Briefing webinars and its extensive resource center, in addition to access to WaterISAC's H2OSecCon conferences at the member rate.