Tips: Combating Cyber Attacks On Critical Infrastructure

Uniloc offers 10 tips to combat cyber attacks on critical infrastructure.

Begin with your environment

1. Do serious risk analysis. Determine what your exposure is to identified threats, their consequences, cost of mitigation and risk tolerance. Create a risk profile of critical assets, using it as a basis to develop policies and procedures prior to deploying technologies.

2. Implement policies and procedures. Before implementing any technical solution, create a comprehensive set of policies and procedures that serve as guidance to operators, security personnel, vendors, and anybody who could have access to or contact with SCADA systems.

3. Ignore training at your peril. Often overlooked, staff training is one of the most important components of a good security plan. Having the right technical policies, procedures and infrastructure is useless without people knowing how to properly use them. Training should encompass all aspects of your security plan.

4. Make security policies as important as safety policies. You should have zero tolerance within the organization for security breaches across any aspect of your SCADA environment. Such breaches can lead to loss of life, bodily injury or other consequences such as a detrimental impact on the environment or local community.

5. Integrate physical and cyber security. Physical access controls and surveillance technologies need to be integrated into an overall cyber security infrastructure. Just as SCADA has migrated to the use of IP protocols and COTs technologies, access and surveillance functions have moved in parallel. Integrating these functions creates a coordinated approach to protecting critical systems.

Know your enemy -- better yet, know your friends

6. Create a “trust” zone. Isolate cyber assets from all personnel except those specifically authorized. Focus on methodologies and technologies that authenticate and authorize only those who are trusted and prohibits all others by default.

7. Establish authentication for users and devices/systems. Device /system “fingerprinting” provides the first layer in creating a “cyber fortress” architecture. Such architecture creates a trust perimeter for both SCADA systems and access clients based on the actual physical fingerprint authentication of systems and devices.

8. Strictly enforce privileges. Ensure that only authenticated systems and clients are allowed to communicate across an encrypted communications channel. All applications should use Role Based Access Control (RBAC) at both the application and device level. Device fingerprinting technology allows RBAC to be implemented at a level that has not been available before -- the device itself.

9. Use dynamic password methodologies. Periodically changing passwords is a best-practice policy worth following. However, in some cases the policy can be restrictive and unenforceable. Using a dynamic challenge and response mechanism between hardware devices creates a hardware password that is enforced dynamically and only known between trusted devices.

10. Adopt physical device recognition. Many companies seek to mitigate the risk of problems caused by humans (traditionally the ‘weak link’ in security systems) by using multi-factor authentication, notably human biometrics such as retina scanning, smart cards, and fingerprinting. While all of these serve to identify an authorized user, most are not practical in an industrial environment. The best solution is to include a user’s computer as part of an identity and access control solution, validating identity through multi-factor identification.

Featured

  • An Inside Look From Napco at ISC West

    Get a look into the excitement at ISC West 2025 from Napco. Hear from some of their top-tech executives live from the show floor. Read Now

    • Industry Events
    • ISC West
  • Upping the Ante

    I am not a betting man in terms of cards, dice, blackjack or that wheel with the black marble racing around the circumference of a spinning wheel, but I would bet on the success of ISC West this year. Read Now

    • Industry Events
    • ISC West
  • It's Show Time

    I am one of those people that likes to see things get bigger and better. As advertised, ISC West is going to be bigger (more exhibitors) and better (more attendees). It’s show time in Las Vegas. Read Now

    • Industry Events
    • ISC West
  • SIA Releases New Report on Operational Security Technology

    The Security Industry Association (SIA) has released an impactful new resource – Operational Security Technology: Principles, Challenges and Achieving Mission-Critical Outcomes Leveraging OST. Read Now

New Products

  • Luma x20

    Luma x20

    Snap One has announced its popular Luma x20 family of surveillance products now offers even greater security and privacy for home and business owners across the globe by giving them full control over integrators’ system access to view live and recorded video. According to Snap One Product Manager Derek Webb, the new “customer handoff” feature provides enhanced user control after initial installation, allowing the owners to have total privacy while also making it easy to reinstate integrator access when maintenance or assistance is required. This new feature is now available to all Luma x20 users globally. “The Luma x20 family of surveillance solutions provides excellent image and audio capture, and with the new customer handoff feature, it now offers absolute privacy for camera feeds and recordings,” Webb said. “With notifications and integrator access controlled through the powerful OvrC remote system management platform, it’s easy for integrators to give their clients full control of their footage and then to get temporary access from the client for any troubleshooting needs.”

  • Mobile Safe Shield

    Mobile Safe Shield

    SafeWood Designs, Inc., a manufacturer of patented bullet resistant products, is excited to announce the launch of the Mobile Safe Shield. The Mobile Safe Shield is a moveable bullet resistant shield that provides protection in the event of an assailant and supplies cover in the event of an active shooter. With a heavy-duty steel frame, quality castor wheels, and bullet resistant core, the Mobile Safe Shield is a perfect addition to any guard station, security desks, courthouses, police stations, schools, office spaces and more. The Mobile Safe Shield is incredibly customizable. Bullet resistant materials are available in UL 752 Levels 1 through 8 and include glass, white board, tack board, veneer, and plastic laminate. Flexibility in bullet resistant materials allows for the Mobile Safe Shield to blend more with current interior décor for a seamless design aesthetic. Optional custom paint colors are also available for the steel frame.

  • A8V MIND

    A8V MIND

    Hexagon’s Geosystems presents a portable version of its Accur8vision detection system. A rugged all-in-one solution, the A8V MIND (Mobile Intrusion Detection) is designed to provide flexible protection of critical outdoor infrastructure and objects. Hexagon’s Accur8vision is a volumetric detection system that employs LiDAR technology to safeguard entire areas. Whenever it detects movement in a specified zone, it automatically differentiates a threat from a nonthreat, and immediately notifies security staff if necessary. Person detection is carried out within a radius of 80 meters from this device. Connected remotely via a portable computer device, it enables remote surveillance and does not depend on security staff patrolling the area.