The STOP-IT project identifies risks and co-develops an all-hazards risk management framework for the physical and cyber protection of critical water infrastructures. Prevention, detection, response and mitigation of relevant risks at strategic, tactical and operational levels of planning are taken into account to generate modular solutions (technologies, tools and guidelines) that will be embedded into an integrated software platform.

Indeed, the ultimate technological outcome is the STOP-IT platform that supports strategic/tactical planning, real-time operational decision making and post-action assessment for the key parts of the water infrastructure. The platform is scalable (scaling from small utilities to large ones), adaptable (including various modules addressing different needs, with expandability for future modules) and flexible (the water utility managers can decide how to use it and it will be usable by experts, novices, and even non-technical staff.

Although many utilities have already invested resources in cybersecurity, more progress is necessary to secure water infrastructure taking into account systemic issues as well as cascading effects. 

The STOP-IT platform clusters technological solutions and analysis tools. The strategic/tactical solutions allow the water utilities to increase preparedness by simulating customized scenarios of attacks on water distribution systems. At operational level the analytic platform supports the real-time detection, analysis and visualization of cyber and physical security events. The platform ranks the severity of the alarms, therefore guiding the security analysts in the decision-making process of prioritizing mitigation actions.

STOP-IT has also developed an organizational stress testing platform complementing the technical one. A gaming-approach has been adopted for stress-testing the organizational resilience to react under crisis situations in case of cyber and/or physical attacks. It also allows users to document available processes and solutions to deal with stressors and as such help with continuous improvement by identifying gaps and possible solutions.