Franklin project adds new security providers, employs digital twins and AI
DEF CON hackers expanded their efforts to provide free cyber-defenses to rural water systems in the US to include managed detection and response providers, digital twins, and AI agents.On Friday, at the annual hacker’s conference, DEF CON Franklin and the National Rural Water Association (NRWA) announced a new program called the Water Watch Center. It will initially fund five providers - Defendify, Legato Security, L1 Secure, Rapid7, and Sentinel Technologies - to help small water utilities serving fewer than 10,000 people detect and mitigate breaches. The security providers will exchange threat info and share that with the NRWA, which provides technical assistance and operational support to small water and wastewater utilities across all 50 states.
“We've had our volunteer experts out for two years in these water utilities, in the trenches with these folks, and the thing that we've realized is that there's just not a scalable delivery mechanism for cyber for these utilities when there’s 150,000 of them, and 98 percent of them are small businesses,” Jake Braun told The Register during an interview at DEF CON.Braun co-founded the Franklin project at DEF CON in 2024, and 350 people signed up that year to donate their time and talent to securing water facilities.
