The above is a drawing of the framework of the 17th Century Swedish warship “Vasa”. The design of the bottom was too shallow and caused the ship to tip over when it tried to sail out of port. Lately governments have been issuing cybersecurity policy documents that are shallow in their depth of understanding of […]
Hacking insecure process sensor systems may have affected the Chernobyl nuclear plant site
I am an engineer not a threat analyst. I can tell you what can happen to control systems from cyber vulnerabilities; I cannot tell you why someone would or would not want to exploit these vulnerabilities. My concerns are from a safety perspective as process sensors are used globally to monitor environmental conditions around industrial […]
Improving Control Systems Management
Operational Technology Cybersecurity is a symptom of a much larger problem. It is a problem that extends beyond just securing networks, keeping forensic logs, managing software and embedded systems. It is MUCH deeper than that. It goes to the core of industrial systems and the people that manage and operate it. HOW DID WE GET […]
A Tale of Two Cities water attacks – Oldsmar and Discovery Bay
There have been more than 130 control system cyber incidents in water/wastewater utilities. Like Oldsmar and Discovery Bay, most of these incidents have occurred in small water utilities. Many of these incidents were not publicly disclosed, nor were the utilities required to disclose these incidents. When the Oldsmar water “hack” was publicized, a water system […]
Differences between IT and control system cyber incidents in maritime
Researchers at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands have launched the Maritime Cyber Attack Database (MCAD). MCAD includes information on over 160 cyber incidents in the maritime industry. When compared to my database of control system cyber incidents, the MCAD database was missing the cases where control system cyber-related incidents caused physical […]
Critical infrastructures cannot be secured when process sensors are not secure
If you can’t trust what you measure, there is no cyber security, resiliency, process safety, productivity, or predictive maintenance in any critical infrastructure or cyber-physical system. Process sensors have no cyber security or authentication yet use remote access extensively as documented in the process sensor vendors’ specifications. ISA and NIST have identified there is no cyber […]
Surface transportation is cyber vulnerable and control system issues are not adequately addressed
May 25, 2023, I gave a presentation to the American Public Transportation Association’s (APTA) Enterprise Cybersecurity Working Group (ECSWG) and Control and Communications Security Working Group (CCSWG) teleconference on “Undetected ICS Cyber Incidents”. The general status was the same as for oil/gas, electric, nuclear power, water/wastewater, medical devices, etc. That is, the focus being on […]
“Chattinn Cyber” with Marsh’s Marc Schein on critical infrastructure cyber security
Marc Schein is the Northeast Cyber Champion for Marsh & McLennan (insurance). Marc has spoken before members of Congress and leaders in the Aviation Industry on Capitol Hill regarding the issues and costs of cyber breaches, and how to properly transfer risk to ensure that an organization or business is properly protected from what might […]
How can you do incident response if you can’t recognize an incident?
Cyber incident response starts with the assumption that you can recognize a control system cyber-related event as being a cyber event. Globally, there have been more than 17 million control system cyber incidents that have killed more than 34,000 yet most of the incidents were not identified as being cyber-related. There is no training for […]
The Forgotten Part of Network Segmentation
If you’ve been wondering about OT network segmentation, read this.