After the pipeline got shot down, it got me thinking about our electrical grid. If they managed to sit it down for just a few weeks, the damage and loss of life would be catastrophic. Why on earth are these systems even accessable to anyone outside this country?
In: Engineering
It’s an extremely complex issue. The easiest way to ensure security is to air-gap a system, which is often not practical. It needs to communicate with other computers in order to fulfil it’s job. So the second best is to prevent any traffic to or from the internet, but to still allow access to or from internal systems. In this case, if one of those internal systems is compromised, an attacker may be able to pivot to the more protected network any way. However, even that precaution can be too restrictive. Especially in these networks, where the firm who designed the system needs to support it, install patches, monitor it, etc.. Cyber security is really just another leg of risk management. A company must define the risks to a system, and then implement the right mix of mitigations that still allows the necessary functionality while presumably preventing an attacker from causing harm. Sometimes, they under shoot, and this is the result.
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