{
  "id": 514777,
  "title": "DEF CON hackers launch Water Watch Center to defend small water utilities",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/10/def-con-hackers-launch-water-watch-center-to-defend-small-water",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-08-10T23:28:39.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "SiliconANGLE",
    "slug": "siliconangle",
    "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2026/08/10/def-con-hackers-launch-water-watch-center-defend-small-water-utilities/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "DEF CON and the National Rural Water Association have unveiled a new program called the Water Watch Center to provide cybersecurity assistance to small water utilities that lack the resources to protect themselves. The launch took place on August 7 at the DEF CON hacker conference in Las Vegas. In late July, over 30 Minnesota water systems fell victim to cyber intrusions, and roughly 12 states have since reported similar incidents. The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are leading the incident response efforts, with officials suspecting Iranian involvement, though this has not been confirmed.\n\nThe Water Watch Center focuses on utilities serving fewer than 10,000 people, which make up 91% of the roughly 50,000 community water systems in the country. Most of these systems have no chief information security officer, no security operations center, and no budget to hire a cybersecurity team. Five managed detection and response providers have joined the effort to share threat information and patches through a dedicated collaboration mechanism, which is then passed on to the National Rural Water Association (NRWA), serving as the national hub for the program.\n\nThis initiative stems from a two-year field effort by DEF CON Franklin, a collaboration between DEF CON and the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy's Cyber Policy Initiative. The team recruited nearly 450 volunteer cyber experts, pairing many of them with water and wastewater utilities across Arizona, Indiana, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wyoming. This hands-on experience helped strengthen individual plants but also highlighted the limitations of volunteer labor against the vast network of 150,000 water and wastewater systems, including wastewater plants and smaller non-community systems.\n\nJake Braun, co-founder of DEF CON Franklin, stated that the combination of volunteers and selected providers aims to keep costs down for financially constrained utilities. The funding for this program is provided through philanthropy, with Craig Newmark, the founder of craigslist, contributing seed money. Vanderbilt University is also involved, applying research from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's CASTLE program to create digital twins of water systems, which will be used to test automated defenses.\n\nMatt Hartman, chief strategy officer at Merlin Group LLC, emphasized that small water and wastewater systems often run legacy operational technology with exposed programmable logic controllers and weak credentials, turning basic attack techniques into significant operational risks. While managed detection and response (MDR) services can offer value to utilities without dedicated cybersecurity staff, Hartman noted that relying on philanthropic funding to sustain this capability underscores the persistent resource gap in the industry. Kevin E. Greene, chief cybersecurity technologist for the public sector at BeyondTrust Corp., highlighted that many small water systems are still operating below the cyber poverty line and suggested that the operating model should be tailored to meet these municipalities where they are, emphasizing the need for sustainable solutions beyond short-term philanthropic support.",
  "summary": "DEF CON Franklin and the National Rural Water Association have launched the Water Watch Center, a program that delivers managed cybersecurity services to small water utilities that have no security staff of their own. The launch came on Aug. 7 at the DEF CON hacker conference in Las Vegas. More than 30 Minnesota water systems […] The post DEF CON hackers launch Water Watch Center to defend small…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}