Adoption of Industrial Ethernet has delivered many benefits to you, from enhanced visibility into your manufacturing operations to simplified network infrastructures and many things in between. Unfortunately, there is a downside to all this “connectedness” – a risk of malware or in extreme cases cyber attacks. Therefore, it is imperative you invest in protection mechanisms to reduce this risk. I recommend a philosophy called “Defense in Depth”, which utilizes a layered security model that may include Policies & Procedures, physical security, network security, PC security, and device security. By implementing multiple layers – types – of security simultaneously, you present a difficult defense for a hacker or piece of malware to penetrate. Read more
|
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from the Practical SCADA Security blog at Tofino Security. APTs have been discussed in some depth in previous blogs, so if you aren’t familiar with the concept (or need a review) check out Part #1 of this series. If you want real world examples of APTs, especially ones that have impacted the energy and chemical industries, browse some of my previous blogs on Nitro, Night Dragon and Duqu. Read more Recently a very complex worm called Flame has been discovered attacking companies in the Middle East, and it is an excellent example of what security experts call an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT). Figuring out how to defend against APTs is a major focus in the IT security world. Now while Flame was busy attacking the Middle East, I was in Abu Dhabi at the International Cyber Security Forum for Energy and Utilities, listening to a talk by Paul Dorey called “Advanced Persistent Threats – A Real Problem with Real Solutions” (you can download his presentation at the end of this article). Paul’s talk focused on security for the IT industry, but there were important lessons on managing attacks in the ICS / SCADA world. I will focus on one of those lessons in today’s blog. Read more With the recent proliferation of cyber attacks, it has become increasingly clear that no business or industry is safe from attack. It is well documented that cyber security threats continue to rise. While these threats once seemed to be mostly limited to attempts to access financial data, recent data indicates that cyber attacks now cut across all business sectors. Security vendor Symantec recently revealed that 75% of enterprises on a global basis witnessed some form of cyber attack during 2009. Read more Recently I wrote about one of the fundamentals of industrial cyber security, which is the concept of Defense in Depth.Today I am going to write about another foundation concept, which goes hand-in-hand with Defense in Depth, and that is using ANSI/ISA-99 Standards to improve control system security. Factors that have degraded Control Network SecurityThere are two opposing trends impacting control network design today:
How does a controls engineer deal with the conflicting requirements of more integration and more isolation? My advice is to accept and plan for high integration with business systems, and to dismiss the idea that control systems can be isolated. Read more |