The growing amount of data and ever more complex tasks lead to more stringent requirements being made on IT security in the gas and water industry. Germany’s gas and water utilities have already installed security systems to protect their IT processes and applications, albeit at different scopes. The legislator opted to act and has passed a series of legal regulations aimed at the digital protection of sensitive parts of the infrastructure and important economic sectors. These regulations include, among others, the Verordnung zur Bestimmung Kritischer Infrastrukturen (BSI-Kritisverordnung, BSI-KritisV; Ordinance on the Identification of Critical Infrastructures) in accordance with the BSI-Gesetz (Act on the Federal Office for Information Security), which entered into force on 3rd May 2016 and gives the companies concerned a maximum of two years to implement measures designed to protect their IT infrastructure. The regulations also include the IT-Sicherheitsgesetz (Act to Strengthen the Security of Federal Information Technology), the INSPIRE Directive and the IT security catalogue issued by the Federal Network Agency, all of which focus on harmonised criteria and standards for the IT systems of important German industries. The DVGW helps gas and water firms to prepare for a digitised future and to efficiently protect their information technology systems and, through its participation in the public-private UP KRITIS cooperation as well as in diverse cross-sector initiatives, actively strives to harmonise IT security standards.
The growing amount of data and ever more complex tasks lead to more stringent requirements being made on IT security in the gas and water industry. Germany’s gas and water utilities have already installed security systems to protect their IT processes and applications, albeit at different scopes. The legislator opted to act and has passed a series of legal regulations aimed at the digital protection of sensitive parts of the infrastructure and important economic sectors. These regulations include, among others, the Verordnung zur Bestimmung Kritischer Infrastrukturen (BSI-Kritisverordnung, BSI-KritisV; Ordinance on the Identification of Critical Infrastructures) in accordance with the BSI-Gesetz (Act on the Federal Office for Information Security), which entered into force on 3rd May 2016 and gives the companies concerned a maximum of two years to implement measures designed to protect their IT infrastructure. The regulations also include the IT-Sicherheitsgesetz (Act to Strengthen the Security of Federal Information Technology), the INSPIRE Directive and the IT security catalogue issued by the Federal Network Agency, all of which focus on harmonised criteria and standards for the IT systems of important German industries. The DVGW helps gas and water firms to prepare for a digitised future and to efficiently protect their information technology systems and, through its participation in the public-private UP KRITIS cooperation as well as in diverse cross-sector initiatives, actively strives to harmonise IT security standards.
