ICS/SCADA/OT Security

I have worked with overhead power, underground power, substation maintenance, wireless communications to substations, and networking of the system protection devices at substations. All this before landing in my present role of cyber security for production devices in the Water/Wastewater space. Even though this may seem like a wide, varied, and disjointed work history, there is a common thread through it all. And that is something called SCADA – Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. The secure flow of this process has taken on greater precedence after the multiple cyber-attacks on the Ukraine power system as well as the more recent compromise of the Water plant in Oldsmar Florida. And as such, it is a good time to be in the Water/Wastewater space as it tries to catch up to the more established cyber posture that is already entrenched in the power industry. It is enjoyable being in the middle of the cyber security awakening change period as it happens for the operational technology networks in the Water/Waste-Water industry. I am zealous in my drive to secure this space as it is one that has traditionally not seen matching growth in cyber security development as has happened throughout the years in typical corporate networks.

So where will the cyber security genre that is focused on Industrial Control Systems be within the next 10 to 15 years. That’s an elusive target, given that we haven’t seen AI take off in this sector yet. Sure, there are next generation firewalls, but this is just a combination of what used to be separate functions – application awareness, intrusion prevention, threat intelligence plus the ability to operate at the application layer. How will AI be incorporated into and with all these functions is the innovative firewall development next step. The incorporation of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning should bring about faster detection and response to potential non-baseline deviations, and potentially minimize false positives. “Faster detection and response time: Using AI/ML software in a firewall and anti-malware on a laptop or desktop is more effective and responsive to threats, limiting the need for human intervention.” (Hall, 2021).

My intention is to use this blog to discuss the processes and methods that are best used to secure the Industrial Control System space and detail some of the challenges, benefits, and potential pitfalls of the process.

Reference: -

Hall, Don (2021, November 8). 4 Benefits of Using AI in Cybersecurity.

https://www.cioinsight.com/security/artificial-intelligence-in-cybersecurity/


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