Articles & Presentations

Article in: InTech Magazine, January 2005

The move to open standards is letting hackers take advantage of the control industry’s ignorance...

Article in: Industrial Networking, Winter 2004

Over the past year (2003) I've written about the serious security risks in using IEEE 802.11—a k a Wireless Ethernet or Wi-Fi—on the plant floor. With all my ranting, you’d think I was against using wireless networks in process control, but I actually like and use Wi-Fi a lot. It is simply too useful to be dismissed...

Article in: Innovations Magazine, September 2004

Without a great deal of thought about security, Canada and the world at large has shifted the control of critical processes in electricity, oil and gas production, water, manufacturing, and communications to networked computers.

E.J. Byres; "Cyber Security Risks for Critical Infrastructure", Innovations Magazine, Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia, Burnaby, BC, p. 17-19, September 2004

Article in: InTech Magazine, April 2004

The IT community is a huge resource with knowledge on what works and doesn't work when it comes to security. The controls community needs to harness that knowledge and technology.

E.J. Byres and G. Gillespie; “Plan for Security”, Industrial Networking, Putman Publishing, Chicago, Vol.1, No.4, p. 24-27, Fall 2003

Article: InTech Magazine, October 2003

Understanding how the new ISA SP-99 Standard is taking a more precise look at the security requirements for control systems in its technical reports.

Article in: Industrial Networking, Summer 2003

In this column, we will look at what went so terribly wrong to give wireless technology a black eye in the security world...

Eric Byres; “Wireless Ethernet’s Black Eye”, Industrial Networking, Putman Publishing, Chicago, Vol. 2, No. 3, p. 13, Summer 2003

Article in: Industrial Networking, Spring 2003

The wireless local area network offers too many benefits to be thrown on the technology trash heap, but it does have to be used with care...

Article in: InTech Magazine, March 2003

During the past 10 years, industrial control systems have seen a significant increase in the use of computer networks and related Internet technologies to transfer information from the plant floor to supervisory and business computer systems.

E. Byres, J. Carter, A. Elramly and D. Hoffman; “Cyber Security: Test Your System Five Ways”, InTech Magazine, Instrumentation Systems and Automation Society, Research Triangle Park, NC, p. 24 – 27, March 2003

Article in: InTech Magazine, December 2002

A few months ago, while attending a conference on “Cybersecurity for Process Control,” we heard a question from a very smart network engineer at Cisco that got us thinking...

Article in: InTech Magazine, September 2002

Ever since the tragic events of September 2001, the process control industry has been trying to understand the risks we face from possible attacks on our chemical plants, water systems, and energy infrastructures. Unfortunately, too many people believe that process control systems are so obscure and complex no one could hack them – nothing could be further from the truth.

Article in: InTech Magazine, February 2002

The serious impact that hacking and viruses have had on corporate information technology (IT) systems is well known. Less understood is the potential damage hackers can do to industrial control equipment such as programmable logic controllers (PLC) and human-machine interfaces (HMIs). This article outlines a multi-stage procedure to protect the plant floor from cyber attacks...