Scottish Water’s £50m cyber security tender

On January 12, 2023, Scottish Water issued a tender (open until February 12, 2023) to select its cybersecurity provider. The company is offering a £50 million (€56.5 million) contract over three years.

The chosen provider will primarily be responsible for strengthening the operational security of Scottish Water’s infrastructure. It will be responsible for « proactive assessment and prevention of cyber security risks« , « execution of complex cyber security projects » and incident response. This will include providing ATC services from a SoC located in the UK.

But the contract also calls for the provider to be involved in the company’s overall strategy. Scottish Water is taking the cyber risk to its business very seriously: water management is one of the « critical » industrial sectors. Scottish Water supplies more than a billion liters of fresh water to millions of customers every day.

According to the tender, the contractor will participate « in the governance of Scottish Water’s strategy and design« . It will also « act as a key source of cyber security advice« . He will be responsible for raising awareness and training teams on this topic.

Scottish Water has limited its tender to three applications. The company has three main IT service providers: Atos, Capgemini and Microsoft partner CompanyNet. All of them market cyber solutions.