Overview
Accenture, Dragos and the SANS Institute have launched the Community Cyber Resilience Foundation, a private-sector program that will provide cybersecurity support to up to 500 under-resourced utilities. The three organizations are collectively investing $10 million, with Elastic providing technical support to help scale the program. It follows breaches of more than 100 U.S. water utilities.
What Participants Receive
| Provider | Contribution |
|---|---|
| Dragos | Tools that identify devices on a utility's network, flag vulnerabilities and guide remediation |
| Accenture | Deployment, configuration and ongoing support |
| SANS Institute | Training to build staff skills |
| Elastic | Technical support to scale the program |
Eligible utilities receive free software, hardware, deployment services and training, and can connect with other participants to share best practices and operational experience. There is no time limit on access.
Eligibility
The program is open to U.S.-based water, wastewater, electric and natural gas utilities with less than $100 million in annual revenue. The companies say this group makes up 97% of utilities. The first phase covers 500 utilities and may expand depending on its success. No federal or state government is involved.
Separately, the National Rural Water Association has launched its own program with five managed detection and response providers.
Why It Matters
Small utilities often run operational technology with little visibility and few dedicated security staff, which makes asset discovery the usual first gap. Pairing monitoring tools with deployment services and training addresses the shortage of both tooling and expertise, rather than funding software alone.
Recommended Actions
- Small utilities: check eligibility and apply if you meet the revenue and sector criteria.
- Build an OT asset inventory if you do not have one. It is the prerequisite for any vulnerability management.
- Remove direct internet exposure of control system interfaces and enforce MFA on remote access.
- Rehearse manual operations so a compromise does not stop service delivery.