Over the last ten years, we’ve lived through the rapid adoption of remote connectivity in industrial environments around the world.
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Now that we understand the chaos of connectivity in modern industrial environments, we can talk about what’s getting hacked right now, and why. Why water? Why refrigerators?
A few unfortunate, incredibly predictable factors have led us here, and my colleagues and I have been screaming about them for years: [ …]
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Fixing the vulnerability isn’t easy, even if the organisation is aware of it. Industrial systems have long lifecycles, sometimes 10 to 30 years. They’re engineered and tested by the OEM to work in a very specific technology stack and topology. Any alteration can, at best, disrupt the process and, at worst, lead to injury or death. Either outcome can be far more damaging than a casual hacker. Because of these lifecycles, and the inability to replace systems, I still deal with Windows 2000, CE, and XP every week. They can’t be removed from production or modified without express authorisation from the OEM and engineers, plus a significant outage and testing window.
… And what about put all of this shit behind a secure front end before connecting to anything?
That’s too complicated and costs too much money. Software and security are afterthoughts in industrial sectors.
Yup, all this insecure crap needs to be in a DMZ and firewalled up the wazoo, but that’s, I was going to say a band-aid, but a pressure bandage is more appropriate, considering how hard it can bleed. Of course, you could just airgap things and actually pay someone to manage the software as needed (like savages), but you know, that’d hit the bottom line. You get what you pay for.