Category: Unfettered

A Reality Check of the DOE 100-Day Plan to Address Cybersecurity Risks to the US Electric System

Electric, Policy, Unfettered 26-April-202126-April-2021 Joe Weiss

I am happy to see ICS cyber security specifically being addressed by the US Secretary of Energy. It is “unobtainium” to secure the electric system, or any other industry which uses the same equipment, within 100 days even though there can be a good start. Network cyber threat prevention and situational awareness can be employed […]

Enough About Data Breaches. Let’s Talk About OT Security – TAG Cyber

Critical Infrastructure, Electric, Policy, Unfettered 22-April-202122-April-2021 Joe Weiss

Tag Cyber moderated a roundtable discussion with Mark Weatherford and me on control system cybersecurity.  The discussion was why operational technology (OT) is woefully neglected—and what can be done to change that. This discussion becomes even more timely with the recent DOE 100-Day Plan to Address Cybersecurity Risks to the US Electric System. The roundtable […]

Data center cybersecurity – don’t overlook the cyber vulnerable building control systems

Critical Infrastructure, Unfettered 23-March-202123-March-2021 Joe Weiss

According to many people, data is the new oil. Industries such as insurance, finance, retail, etc. depend on massive amounts of data from multiple data centers. However, what happens if you can’t get to your data because the data center infrastructure or servers have been damaged and are unusable? Data is merely a series of […]

The US food supply is neither cybersecure nor safe from control system cyber threats

Critical Infrastructure, Food/Agriculture, Unfettered 14-March-202114-March-2021 Joe Weiss

The US FDA is supposed to assure the US food supply is safe from adulteration. However, the FDA Food Safety Management Act (FSMA) requirements ignore cyber threats. There have been more than 20 control system cyber incidents in food and beverage facilities including some where people were harmed and others that shut down facilities. Similar […]

Observations from 2021 SANS ICS Cyber Security Conference

Critical Infrastructure, Dams, Electric, General Topic, Policy, Transportation, Unfettered, Water/Wastewater 8-March-20218-March-2021 Joe Weiss

The 2021 SANS ICS Cyber Security Conference was held March 4-5, 2021 with almost 9,000 registrants globally. The Conference thoroughly addressed OT networking issues. However, cyber security issues associated with Level 0,1 devices were not as adequately understood and addressed. There was also almost no discussion of the hardware backdoors in the Chinese-made transformers. My […]

Texas power outages demonstrate grid cyber vulnerability and inadequacy of existing regulations

Critical Infrastructure, Electric, General Topic, Policy, Unfettered 1-March-20211-March-2021 Joe Weiss

Recent Texas power outages and the loss of both electricity and water across Texas demonstrate how vulnerable ERCOT and Texas are to not only natural disasters such as snowstorms and hurricanes but also manmade and malicious activities. More than that, it also demonstrates the vulnerability of the entire U.S. Energy grid. The good news is […]

Don’t overlook the most consequential control system cyber events of 2020

Electric, Policy, Unfettered 21-January-202121-January-2021 Joe Weiss

URL: https://www.controlglobal.com/blogs/unfettered/dont-overlook-the-most-consequential-control-system-cyber-events-of-2020/ Two of the most consequential control system cyber events (attacks) in 2020 were supply chain attacks. The first event was the Chinese installing hardware backdoors in large electric transformers, an incident that prompted Presidential Executive Order (EO) 13920. The hardware backdoors are obvious control system threats. The second event was the Russian SolarWinds […]