Applied Medical Research. 2020;
7(2):(80-175)
Industrial Control Systems: The Biggest Cyber Threat
Christos P Beretas
Abstract
Industrial control systems (ICS) are critical, as in these systems, cyber threats have the
potential to affect, disorganize, change their mode of operation, act as an information
extraction vehicle, and ultimately turn against itself. Creating risks to the system itself,
infrastructure, downtime, leakage of sensitive data, and even loss of human life. Industrial
control systems (ICS) are vital to the operation of all the modern automated infrastructure
in the western world, such as power plant and power stations. Industrial control systems
(ICS) differ from the traditional information systems and infrastructures of organizations and
companies, a standard cyber security strategy cannot be implemented but part of it adapting
to the real facts and needs of each country, legislation and infrastructure. These systems
require continuous operation, reliability and rapid recovery when attacked electronically
with automated control, isolation and attack management processes. Incorrect settings
and lack of strategic planning can lead to unprotected operation of critical installations, as
they do not meet the cyber security requirements. Industrial control systems (ICS) require
special protection in their networks, as they should be considered vulnerable in all their
areas, they need protection from cyber attacks against ICS, SCADA servers, workstations,
PLC automations, etc. Security policies to be implemented should provide protection
against cyber threats, and systems recovery without affecting the operation and reliability
of operating processes. Security policies such as security assessment, smart reporting,
vulnerability and threat simulation, integrity control analysis, apply security policy to shared
systems, intrusion detection and prevention, and finally firewall with integrated antivirus
and sandbox services should be considered essential entities.