On October 26th at 8:30 am, I will be giving one of the keynote presentations at the 12th Cyber Security Summit in Minneapolis – https://www.cybersecuritysummit.org/. The title of my presentation is “Narrowing the Gap – A Unilateral Understanding of Engineering and Network Security” or “The risks of cutting corners to put a square peg in a […]
Category: Unfettered
Many OT cyber security experts don’t understand the systems they are trying to secure – the square peg in the round hole
There is an old saying about not forcing a square peg into a round hole. The square peg is IT and OT network security. The round hole is the insecure ICS field device. On September 8, 2022, RSA held the RSAC 365 Virtual Seminar & Innovation Showcase: OT & ICS Security. The session was focused on […]
Critical infrastructures cannot be secure when critical equipment isn’t
August 25, 2022, I received a call from an insurance specialty insurer who had received an Operational Technology (OT) Supplemental Application from a global control system supplier to the aerospace industry, industrial operations, and the US Department of Defense. I am personally aware of at least some of the company’s products because of their use […]
Windows-based HMIs are too slow for monitoring process sensors or plant equipment anomalies
Process sensors are the input for predictive maintenance, digital transformation, Industry4.0, smart manufacturing, smart grid, etc. The majority of OT networks use Windows-based HMIs even though Windows was not designed to be an engineering data acquisition tool. In a recent plant test, the Windows-based HMI was not effective and, in fact, provided misleading information on […]
Cyberattacks causing kinetic damage are neither new nor uncommon
July 11, 2022, the BBC published an article, “Predatory Sparrow: Who are the hackers who say they started a fire in Iran?” The article states that it’s extremely rare for hackers to cause damage in the physical world. But according to the BBC article, a cyberattack on a steel mill in Iran was a kinetic […]
Utility/DOE data indicates sophisticated hackers have compromised US electric control centers
This is the utilities’ data and DOE analyzed it… and it was still missed DOE’s Form OE-417 collects information from the US utilities on electric incidents and emergencies. The OE-417 data covers the time span from 2000 through the end of February 2022 and so does not include any incidents since the start of the […]
The survey results of the 2022 DNV energy cyber security report are grossly misleading
DNV published The Cyber Priority report, “The State of Cyber Security in the Energy Sector”. I believe the oil, gas, and chemical (not electric) industries are leading most industries addressing control system cyber security. The report states the research draws on a survey of 948 energy professionals and a series of in-depth interviews with industry […]
Critical infrastructure cyber security is broken – process sensors continue to be ignored
While no one would argue that network security isn’t important, it’s also important that the basic process sensor data that cross the OT network not be overlooked. Process sensors are necessary input for reliability, availability, safety, predictive maintenance, product quality, and cyber security. Yet process sensors have no cyber security and are connected to the […]
Utility industry continues to deny that control system cyber incidents are occurring
Control system cyber incidents are real and impactful (more than 500 control system cyber incidents in the electric industry). To date, most of these incidents have not been identified as “cyber” because of lack of identified intent. When reporting and remediating a control system cyber incident, the intent isn’t as important as the impact of […]
Control system cyber incidents in electric and other sectors are frequent, often impactful, but not reported
The electric and nuclear industries have required “incident” disclosure for more than 20 years. The other infrastructure sectors either have no incident disclosure requirements or only recently started such as TSA for pipelines and EPA for water. There is a significant gap between the electric industry’s reported control system cyber incidents and actual control system […]