When we're describing cyberattacks against industrial control systems, it can sound like we're talking about something medical. Words like "virus," "inject," "infect," and "quarantine" can be found all over the world of cybersecurity.
So if you're immersed in the world of cybersecurity like we are, our current news cycle can be a hall of mirrors. It's a reminder that these concepts we know so well are abstract approximations of medical terms, carried over from the study of living viruses.
Of course, we're seeing a lot of coverage these days of one specific virus. The recently classified pandemic COVID-19 will have long-term effects that are difficult to foresee today, and we hope you and your loved ones stay healthy. This is an automation cybersecurity blog, however—so what parallels exist between the COVID-19 outbreak and the automation cybersecurity industry? How are the associated concepts related, aside from a few phrases that happen to overlap?
A new post on ISA Interchange, the official blog of the International Society of Automation, tackles this subject:
The dramatic increase in connectivity—of devices, systems, networks, and facilities—has been the underlying enabler to digital transformation, which has brought an unprecedented increase in productivity and reliability across industry sectors. In a similar fashion, over a longer time period, the worldwide economy has benefited greatly from the transition to an interconnected, mobile world where significant percentages of populations can travel internationally—affordably and reliably—at numbers we’d never imagined in the centuries prior.
In a connected world, how do you limit the vectors of potentially contagious threats? Whether those threats are new diseases or new malware, containment is more than just a handy word choice—it's essential. Read the full blog post here, and stay tuned for additional coverage. We're working on a blog post about security considerations in remote environments.
This is a significant topic right now, and ISA (along with ISAGCA) will work hard to deliver quality information that you can trust. If you'd like to see blog posts on other topics, please drop us a note below. Thanks for reading!