Last Saturday, I read an article about hackers who were behind at least two potentially fatal intrusions on oil and gas industrial facilities (Yes I read cyber articles on the weekend ). Besides the fact that I enjoy learning about cybersecurity on my days off, what I noticed is that these articles aren’t going away, but are becoming more prevalent.  Even with the countless number of attacks, much effort and focus on cybersecurity today is still on cleaning up problems after vulnerabilities have been found. 

Sure we’ve learned from these attacks, however, even with these efforts of keeping up with testing, installing the latest security patches and adding multiple layers of defense to make exploiting these vulnerabilities difficult to reach, we sometimes open ourselves to new vulnerabilities. What if there was a way to eliminate many vulnerabilities in products before they were released and put into use? 

As it turns out, there are many methods today that have been developed to do just that.  Many of these methods have been captured in the IEC 62443 series of standards and we are now using them with success.  Eliminating bugs and strengthening code, encrypting communications, and cybersecurity personnel education are just a small handful of the many ways companies today can take a proactive approach.  Why play the game of cyber roulette?  Let me know your thoughts or join me for an indepth webinar on June 27.