Often, the most critical threats come from within an organization itself. This is true for all sectors, but it is especially true for industrial control systems (ICS). Technicians in these environments already have access to plant controls and may have the deep knowledge of industrial processes needed to achieve specific goals. The damage caused by an insider may range from mild disruption to...

Faced with rows of empty gas pumps , many Americans on the East Coast may be wondering why this happened , whether it will happen again, or if there is anything we can do to avoid future catastrophe. The unpleasant truth of the matter is that this will certainly not be the last time society is disrupted due to attackers targeting critical industrial control systems (ICS). The impact of such an...

Over the weekend, the Alpharetta-based Colonial Pipeline was hit by an extensive ransomware attack that shut down its information technology (IT) and industrial operational technology (OT) systems. Simply put, an all-too-common ransomware event targeting IT systems encouraged a voluntary shutdown on the production side (OT) of the business to prevent further exposure. Colonial Pipeline is...

Lane Thames, PhD and principal security researcher at Tripwire explains the challenges you might not have considered in IT/OT convergence. https://open.spotify.com/episode/2w3lsuN3V1ZOiLVGqxw58v?si=5lVBp46tTiK7tfzmCnpeuA Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5UDKiGLlzxhiGnd6FtvEnm Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-tripwire-cybersecurity-podcast RSS: https://tripwire.libsyn.com/rss...

When it comes to cybersecurity, industrial IT —consisting mainly of operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS)—has failed to keep up with development in the enterprise IT world. That’s mostly because industries’ adoption of internet technology has been slower when compared with enterprises. It would take some time to close the gap, but concerted efforts have already been made...

The latest Honeywell USB Threat Report 2020 indicates that the number of threats specifically targeting Operational Technology systems has nearly doubled from 16% to 28%, while the number of threats capable of disrupting those systems rose from 26% to 59% over the same period. Let’s face it. Critical infrastructure operators in manufacturing, aerospace, energy, shipping, chemical, oil and gas...

The trucking sector is essential to countless other industries. Without reliable transportation, supply chains would crumble, and companies and consumers would face shortages. With so much riding on it, it’s no wonder why the industry has fully embraced technology like telematics in recent years. Telematics refers to the suite of technologies fleets use to share data between vehicles and command...

Through the lens of the Florida water supply hack, Dale Peterson teaches how events like these remind us to take the necessary steps to maintain our cybersecurity. Founder and chair of S4 Events, Dale has been helping security professionals effectively and efficiently manage risk to their critical assets for over 15 years. https://open.spotify.com/episode/65nUedFSHvdRSPUHgYH2Qn?si=vd7cA3T7Q4CCh...

In the last quarter of 2019, researchers at ClearSky uncovered an attack operation that they dubbed the “Fox Kitten Campaign.” Iranian actors used this offensive to gain persistent access into the networks of dozens of companies operating in Israel and around the world across the IT, telecommunication, oil and gas, aviation, government and security sectors. These individuals were successful in...

The cyber threat landscape today continues to pose a myriad of unique challenges. This is especially the case for industrial organizations due to factors such as aging equipment, poor design or implementation, skills gaps and a lack of visibility. These shortcomings are exacerbated by the mean time to breach detection, which continues to hover above 150 days on average . The SANS Institute via the...

The digital threat landscape is always changing. This year is an excellent (albeit extreme) example. With the help of Dimensional Research, Tripwire found out that 58% of IT security professionals were more concerned about the security of their employees’ home networks than they were before the outbreak of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). Slightly fewer percentages of respondents expressed concerns...

Why leveraging live environment simulations and putting ICS tools to the test is the best way to evaluate their fitness. Track and field was one of my favorite sports growing up. I didn’t begin competitively participating until I was a teenager, but I was instantly hooked once I started. Why? Because the clock didn’t lie. The tape measure didn’t lie. The fastest time always won, and the longest...

Trust, respect, understanding. These are all two-way relationships that must be earned over time. Whilst someone being hired in a senior position will likely already have a certain level of each, part of your job is to continuously cultivate all three of these elements with colleagues no matter your grade. When working within a cybersecurity practice, it is critically important to have this level...

As a security consultant, I’m not going into an environment to design and build an organization’s network from the ground up in most situations. For the majority of the time, I’m working with legacy environments where some old technologies might be phasing out and newer ones joining the mix of solutions. In the case of one environment I went to, for instance, it was all of this plus a variety of...

On January 7 th , MITRE released ATT&CK for Industrial Control Systems , a taxonomy of real-world cyber adversarial behavior targeting ICS or industrial control systems. These systems operate critical infrastructure in manufacturing and utility industries, and they are popular targets in financial and espionage motivated attacks. Recent high-profile attacks on industrial control systems include...

Most industrial organizations are behind the curve when it comes to cybersecurity, facing mounting complexities like the IIoT, the skills gap and the IT/OT divide. But what about industrial organizations that are already taking steps in the right direction and need to know what awaits them on the horizon? What practical next steps can your organization take to optimize your current ICS...

Since the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation ( GDPR ) on 25 May 2018, organizations and even private citizens have globally begun to re-assess what it means to ‘take security seriously’ and to better understand the massive difference between security and privacy. What you may not be familiar with is the Network and Information Systems Directive (NIS Directive), which is a...

Whilst working for a management consultancy, I learned a lot more about industrial control systems (ICS) than I ever imagined I would. In many cases, this wasn’t from working on them directly; it was from simply speaking to the technicians and reading documentation. Oftentimes, we have the false belief that our systems are safe from compromise because no one really knows how they work. It’s like...

As we begin our new decade of the 2020s, we can look back at the last 30 odd years and examine the collaboration between technology and our daily lives. If you think of your day-to-day, it’s easy to see how much our society relies on technology. Consider our smart devices such as mobile phones, watches, even homes. However, what about the technology that we don’t see, that gives us clean drinking...