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From Floods to Firewalls: the importance of cyber resilience

In the idyllic Thessaly region Central Greece, the first days of September were marked by unprecedented flooding that disrupted the lives of citizens, water supplies and health services. In such exceptional circumstances, it is essential to minimize the impact on essential services. That's why Fujitsu's cyber security team recently worked with local stakeholders to assess the impact of the floods, highlighting the importance of protecting essential services from both the wrath of nature and cyber threats. As the world grapples with the growing impact of natural disasters, the article highlights the equally significant threat of orchestrated cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure, underscoring the urgency of cyber security awareness and preparedness.

Larissa, Volos and several towns and villages in the Central Greece, prefecture of Thessaly, were during the autumn the subject of unprecedented flooding, which affected the movement of citizen, the water distribution in the region, the electricity facilities, the ability for healthcare professional to deliver vital support to patients.

While the occurrence of such adverse and catastrophic events cannot be always prevented, it is essential as prescribed by regulation such as NIS2 that they are contain to the least. A key to mitigating their impact is by making provision to ensure continuity in the delivery of ensuing essential and vital services.

As part of the CS Aware Next Project, Fujitsu's cybersecurity team conducted dedicated workshop on Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery with stakeholders from the ICT Water management, the healthcare ICT management and the representatives from the municipality of Larissa.

Through that workshop, our team was able to comprehend how the flooding came to affect the living environment and ecosystems within the region, but also the delivery and access to essential and vital services. The chronology of events, information sharing and incident reporting were of relevance to our team. In fact, this is core to identifying the dependency amongst the organizations that are stakeholders in the delivery of relevant services to citizens and to understand the propensity of risks amongst those stakeholders.

As we are witnessing an alarming increase in the frequency of occurrence of natural catastrophes on our society, and the ensuing devastation that come with it, it is equally important to remember that a carefully placed and orchestrated cyber-attack on critical infrastructure and vital services could lead to an impact of similar magnitude.

Raising awareness on this status quo and supporting organizations in preparing for human induced cyber impairment of delivery and access to essential and vital services is fast becoming an urgency. As a matter of fact, if the digital systems we are using are not secure, they are potentially not conducive to supporting the delivery of safe transport, uninterrupted water supply, efficient health service or energy.

Fujitsu’s expertise on Business Continuity and Resilience is put at contribution to support the elaboration of optimal strategy and the orchestration of cyber resilience of local & regional organizations working in synergy to provide essential and vital services.