Practical SCADA Security

Control System Security Threats, Security / Reliability Incidents, Useful Industrial Cyber Security Tips

Shamoon Malware and SCADA Security – What are the Impacts?
Heather MacKenzie
Thursday, October 25, 2012

Ed. Note: This is a significant update to an article first published on Sept 25, 2012. The original article is available as a download in Related Links.

 

The most destructive post-Stuxnet discovery of advanced threats is a malicious malware known as Shamoon. Like Stuxnet, Duqu and Flame, it targeted energy companies in the Middle East, this time Saudi Aramco, Qatar’s RasGas and likely other oil and gas concerns in the region. It is a new species however, because it did not disrupt an industrial process as Stuxnet did, nor did it stealthily steal...

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SCADA Security: Tofino provides an Alternative to Patching
Eric Byres
Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Last week I wrote about a serious issue in the patching of SCADA and ICS systems. Just when you think you are installing all needed patches, some critical ones are getting missed.

 

Unfortunately, I think even the phrase “installing all needed patches” is too optimistic. In my surveys of SCADA and ICS facilities, I find that even when operating system patches are getting installed, application patches are not. For example, many HMIs are running copies of Abode PDF Reader that haven’t been patched in years. Considering that Adobe has...

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The Critical SCADA Security Patch that your Control System Isn’t Getting
Eric Byres
Friday, October 12, 2012

Yesterday afternoon I received a note from another security expert that has left me a bit stunned. Like most of you, I assumed that if you are patching your Windows computers on your SCADA or ICS system (using some variation of Microsoft Windows Update), then any vulnerable services that can be patched will be patched. Well guess again – you may still have a number of open vulnerabilities that are happily being missed by the Windows update service. And scariest of all, you can’t do much about it.

 

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SCADA Security is a Mindset - ISSSource Explains Why at Belden Design Seminar
Heather MacKenzie
Thursday, October 4, 2012

For those of us passionate about industrial security it is great to see it being integrated into networking training as it was at the Belden Industrial Ethernet Infrastructure Design Seminar held near Chicago earlier this week.

 

At this event end users, Systems Integrators and channel partners learnt about industrial Ethernet networking by attending a wide range of lectures and hands-on labs. There were several sessions and labs on industrial security, and the luncheon speakers on each of the first two days focused on security.

 

Greg Hale, the Editor and Founder of...

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Awesome SCADA Security Operations Centre
David Alexander
Wednesday, September 19, 2012

To understand the problems faced by SCADA users, the team at Regency IT Consulting wanted to build a basic test rig. The goal with the rig was to help us understand the users’ challenges and to interact with the technology and protocols.

 

I’ve always worked on the basis of needing to be able to ‘take things apart’ and understand its internals before I look at how to protect them. Call it going back to the first principles of Information Security if you like, but to me it’s a simple common sense and a methodical approach.

Development of the SCADA Security Operations Centre (SOC)

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Eric Byres

 

 

The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of the Contributors. Content published here does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Tofino Security

 

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