Once again, the Eifel Wastewater Day was organised by BITControl. This year's event took place on 22 March 2018 in prestigious surroundings in the Robert Schumann House with a view of the Roman city of Trier. Operators of wastewater, water and biogas plants, equipment suppliers and engineering firms met here to exchange experiences on the topic of IT security.
Wastewater treatment plants must also be protected from hackers
Press release:
IT security plays an important role for public service structures. This sector also includes the discharge and treatment of wastewater. The engineering firm BITControl organised an industry meeting on this topic at the Robert Schuman Haus in Trier.
On Thursday 22 March, wastewater technology experts met again at the Robert Schuman Haus in Trier for the Eifel Wastewater Day. This year's meeting, organised by BITControl from Nattenheim near Bitburg, focused on IT security. After all, malicious hackers can also infiltrate the networks of our wastewater treatment plants and not only steal data, but may even damage our waters. Speakers on hardware and software and from the umbrella organisation of the water and wastewater industry sensitised operators and planners of wastewater treatment plants, water supply and biogas plants to this topic. Dr Simon from IT-Haus in Föhren showed the ways in which attackers can gain access to a network and from there penetrate any organisation worldwide via the Internet in order to place malware or access data. Dr Hetzel from the German Association for Water, Wastewater and Waste explained very vividly how the associations work together with politicians to develop the guidelines for the various supply sectors and how threshold values and application regulations ultimately come about.
Process control systems at wastewater treatment plants, digital documentation and photos simply taken on site with mobile phones now provide a wealth of valuable information, but also a flood of data, the handling of which represents a challenge for the operator of wastewater treatment plants. It is therefore not only necessary to prevent unauthorised access, tools are also needed to process the data and make it available in such a way that it can be used sensibly.
For engineer Markus Becker, the truth in civil engineering lies before the excavator shovel. The owner of the engineering office Berthold Becker from Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler used a graphic information system developed by his office to show how valuable expert knowledge is and how this can be made available to other experts using photos or films. His network connects a large number of civil engineering experts who provide each other with valuable information about the local subsoil in a map. A LINK in his localexpert24 provides a link to the BITControl engineering firm's data platform, which leads directly to the appropriate directory on the PROVI ONLINE platform. Here you can then look up construction plans or operating instructions for machines.
The PROVI ENERGY energy analysis software from engineering firm BITControl shows how the process data of a wastewater treatment plant can be used to save energy. PROVI ENERGY calculates the power consumption for each individual machine, for example, and extrapolates a large number of characteristic values, potential savings and other results, from the treatment stages to the entire plant. The results are displayed graphically to the user. In further graphs, the plant operator can see how efficiently he is operating his plant compared to other wastewater treatment plants. This is an incentive to continuously improve in competition.
The visitors had ample opportunity to exchange and discuss the newly acquired information during the breaks. The conference centre above the rooftops of Trier provided a very stimulating atmosphere for this.
The Eifel Wastewater Day will remain a pleasant memory for the participants. IT security represents a further challenge for the operators of our wastewater disposal and water supply systems. You will certainly have taken many new ideas and contacts home with you.
