Cyber-attack on a water company ‘highly likely’ in 2020

Thanks to the environmental activism we’ve had from Greta Thunberg, David Attenborough and Extinction Rebellion over the last 12 months, combating climate change has skyrocketed to the top of the UK news agenda.

Now that it has captured the attention of the general public, it has become clear that tackling the crisis requires input at a consumer, government and business level. Next year, the onus will be on everyone to address this.

Part of this global crisis is water usage, and the UK is not exempt. In fact, the average water usage per person in the UK is a staggering 140 litres per day, whereas in Denmark they use just 80 litres.  Leakage is an even bigger, but easier to fix, problem. In England alone, 3.2 billion litres of water are being lost from leaking infrastructure every day, equivalent to 1,273 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Following the enhanced expectations set out in Ofwat’s December final determinations, alongside rising environmental scrutiny, water providers will be under increasing pressure to tackle water wastage in 2020. Following continued debate from the industry about the aggressive targets set by the regulator there is a high chance we’ll see a coordinated pushback demanding more realistic ones ahead of April 2020, however the trajectory is unchanging.

Undoubtedly, we’ll see a determined effort to put proper stewardship and monitoring practice in place to ensure water is not wasted. Part of this will include the increased uptake of AMI smart water meters, capable of sending hourly readings in near real time to the water provider, which can reduce leak run-time to just 2-3 weeks. As these smart meter networks continue to grow and generate vast amounts of data in 2020, smart meters will increasingly be seen as integral tools for water providers seeking to identify actionable trends, and also increase consumer engagement around water consumption.

However, this increased level of data collection, teamed with the explosion of publicly connected devices, leaves water companies more exposed to cyber-attacks. It is highly likely we’ll see a water company experience a cyber-attack of high significance in 2020.

Projecting further into the future, we can expect to see a fully instrumented and automated water system across the UK. The rise of AI and predictive tools will allow for a much more efficient and automated optimisation of water systems, helping to encourage more collaboration between water companies and ensure that there is a more equal water distribution across the country.