16Building More Resilient Cybersecurity Solutions for Infrastructure Systems

Daniel Wagner

Synopsis

Much of the world's global infrastructure was never designed to take cyber threats into account. Largely based on 1970s era SCADA technology, which is highly vulnerable to attack, many power plants, water control systems, and other critical infrastructures will remain vulnerable because the hundreds of billions of dollars required to replace them is not available. When funding does become available, what are some of the considerations that should be taken into account in the design of news systems to ensure that new types of vulnerabilities do not replace existing ones? This chapter will explore the topic broadly, elaborating on the scope of the problem, current types of solutions, and an orientation toward the future.

16.1 A Heightened State of Vulnerability

The world's infrastructure is generally vulnerable to cyberattack because so much of it is dependent upon software and so many of its systems are interconnected. Much of the world's critical infrastructure utilizes supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, which automatically monitor and adjust switching, manufacturing, and other process control activities based on digitized feedback data gathered by sensors. These tend to be specialized, older computer systems that control physical pieces of equipment that do everything from routing trains along their tracks to distributing power throughout a country. SCADA ...

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