The age of malware specifically targeting industrial control systems (ICS) began in 2010 when Stuxnet was revealed to be disrupting operations at one of Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Since that shock, we have seen advanced malware, such as Flame and Duqu target energy companies for espionage purposes. We have also witnessed the unsophisticated, but highly effective, Shamoon malware massively infiltrate Saudi Aramco.

“Engineers not specializing in cyber security often throw their hands up at security, it’s not what they do,” says Pat Differ, Director of Sales at Securicon LLC, a consulting firm specializing in cyber security services and solutions for critical infrastructure industries. “The result is they may end up relying heavily on IT-oriented or recommended solutions that are not meant for industrial applications.”

About 6 months ago I wrote an article for this blog about the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. The article described how the framework came to be, what it is, what it is supposed to do and what you should do about it.

If you are a regular follower of this blog, you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t been writing much in the past few months. I just have been too busy, traveling and speaking at some really great security conferences.

System Integrators play an important role in helping manufacturers benefit from industrial automation technologies. They design and implement sophisticated control systems and their expertise, project management skills and manpower help companies achieve advances that cannot be realized with internal resources.