Category: General Topic

I’m ranting again. This is a recurring plague for me. Allow me to just get this out of my system right now: DELIVER ME FROM THOSE AWFUL OFFICE-GRADE UPS BOXES! I hate the damned things. Why? Because some idiot who can’t be bothered to deal with the more difficult issues just grabs one off the […]

Commander #1: We’ve analyzed their attack, sir, and there is a danger. Should I have your ship standing by? Gov. Tarkin: Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances. – Quote from the film Star Wars IV (1) The Star Wars film epic in addition to providing good entertainment raises some […]

A certain well known vendor of PLC equipment has been earning some heat from me recently. I’m not mentioning names because frankly, all of these big name vendors are facing the same problems. The issue is that even if we didn’t find sufficient reason to patch programs in a PLC, we’re finding that we have […]

One of the more troublesome aspects of a control system is detecting when the I/O is broken versus a security problem of some sort. This is one of the keys between knowing that you’re being hacked versus having some sort of hardware failure. With that in mind, these are some measures I have found to […]

“Although you cross the Atlantic for years and have ice reported and never see it, at other times it’s not reported and you do see it.” – Charles Lightoller, Titanic Second Officer (speaking at the public inquiry into the sinking) In one of my recent lectures on “The cybersecurity dimension of critical energy infrastructure” I […]

“The pump don’t work, cause the vandals took the handles” – Bob Dylan The use of high technology (information technology and telecommunications) has entered almost every aspect of our lives. You name a sector and it is there: finance, trade, energy, communications, transportation, even education and healthcare. High tech is what modern society is built […]

– After the ship has sunk, everyone knows how she might have been saved. – Italian proverb In an earlier blog I wrote about the importance of answering the key questions in developing a strategy to secure a critical asset (1). I could see the consequences of not taking the time to fully comprehend these […]

A high official of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is reported recently to have announced that a disrupting cyber incident took place at a nuclear power plant around two-three years ago. (1) He was quoted further saying “This issue of cyber-attacks on nuclear-related facilities or activities should be taken very seriously. We never know […]

Last year was an interesting year for critical infrastructure protection. It began with the German Government’s Federal IT Department (BSI) issuing its yearly cyber incident report covering cyber incidents from the previous year. Noteworthy was the mention of a cyber-attack on the control systems of a steel mill that resulted in physical damage to the […]