IT
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Connected Plant
3 Major Cybersecurity Challenges Facing Critical Infrastructure and OT
Let’s be honest. Operational technology (OT) security issues are expected. Traditional OT systems were designed for specific functional—operational—purposes. Plus, they were designed to last for many decades. The power grid, the water supply, the manufacturing plant floor, these ubiquitous 24/7/365 operations fuel daily activities—and they power as much business as they do hospitals that care […]
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IIOT
GAO: EPA Relies on Outdated Systems to Manage Air Quality Data
Two IT air quality data systems that inform the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) regulatory and compliance decisions are outdated, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has suggested. The federal agency must make progress to develop a business case to replace them, it said. The congressional watchdog in a report made public on Sept. 29 […]
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Commentary
Mitigating Insider Threats: Five Strategies for Critical Infrastructure Entities this Cybersecurity Awareness Month
A New York Times Magazine expose detailed the complicated and shockingly brazen inner workings of international espionage. However, the spies profiled weren’t targeting government secrets. They were interested in corporate intellectual property, or IP, an equally valuable commodity in today’s highly competitive global economy. Specifically, the publication reported systemic efforts to entice employees at critical […]
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Connected Plant
Energy Is the Most-Targeted Sector for Cyberattacks: Here’s What to Do
The energy sector recorded three times as many operational technology (OT) and/or industrial control system (ICS) cybersecurity incidents as the next closest vertical, according to a study conducted by the Cyentia Institute, a research and data science firm, and sponsored by Rockwell Automation, an industrial automation and information provider. “Energy, critical manufacturing, water treatment, and […]
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Connected Plant
Four Ways to Protect the Energy Sector from Cybersecurity Threats
It’s been two years since the historic Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack shut down one of the largest and most vital oil pipelines in the U.S. While this hasn’t been the nation’s only attack on power infrastructure, it’s the largest publicly disclosed and, at $4.4 million, it was also the most-costly. Since then, we’ve learned that […]
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Cybersecurity
Modernizing Cybersecurity Practices Within Utilities
The utility industry needs to be prepared to adapt at this time of uncertainty and change, rising prices, and international turmoil. However, it is becoming more challenging to comply with regulations and
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Connected Plant
Zero Trust: Protecting Critical Infrastructure and Responding to CISA’s ‘Shields Up’
There are no boundaries in cyberspace. That fact has accelerated sharing of threat intelligence across the defenders, but it exponentially raises the threat of cyberattacks. This reality is underscored by the war in Ukraine, “the first major conflict involving large-scale cyber operations,” according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA). A major concern is […]
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Connected Plant
Implement Cost-Effective, Zero-Trust Remote Operations to Mitigate Cyber Risks and Maintain Operational Resilience
In January 2021, a hacker accessed the digital infrastructure controlling the water supply for Oldsmar, a Florida city of 15,000 people. The bad actor attempted to manipulate the city’s water supply, exploiting a vulnerability in the company’s IT-grade remote access software to alter levels of sodium hydroxide in the water supply, raising its concentration to […]
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IIOT
Three Things Utility Companies Need to Do to Prevent the Next Cyberattack
For the better part of the past decade, utility companies have been more concerned with the potential for outages than cyberattacks, but this has changed over the past several months. The Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack and the remote cyberattack on a Florida water treatment plant put cybersecurity top-of-mind and made it clear hackers can do […]
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Connected Plant
Two Keys for Better Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity
Two recent incidents have made the cost of not protecting our infrastructure and natural resources abundantly clear. First, there was the widely publicized SolarWinds attack that infected more than a dozen utility companies, and oil and gas manufacturing entities. Then, there was a dangerous incident in Florida, where a hacker gained access to a water […]
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