Control System Cyber Security

Control systems are everywhere in the industry expecially for power plants, auto factories and so on.If there is something bad happened to the control system ,for example, some virus spreaded in the control system, you even can not imagine what kind of catastrophic damage it can bring to the factorty even the district. The value of the power plant(600MW) is about $200m dollars. The control center of system is so vital to make sure the plant run successfully and continuously for maybe 10 or 20 years. During that, update and maintainance are also important.

http://www.isa.org/InTechTemplate.cfm?Section=InTech&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=16829 Due to the news of virus and physical attack, most people realize the importance to secure issues from the ordinary web-connected computers, however,little attention has been paid to the control system security. It is understandable, because most control systems are not connected the web, but the situation is changing fast beyond what we have expected.

"Now, deregulation, productivity enhancements, corporate desire for control system information through such tools as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and other changes are mandating enormous increases in information sharing." If accidently the control system computer connected to the outside, or if some body did some intentional damage to the control system, how can the adminstrate deal with this. It needs to establish some regulation to secure the control system.

One example for ensuring the security of control system is after Huriccan Katrina, US government establishes some regulations to make sure the operation control system work properly, the details are listed in

http://www.us-cert.gov/reading_room/KatrinaCSA.pdf

The unawareness of the security of control system will do much damage as it did to the current web site, sometimes, we even can not tolerate this kind of damage at all. Regulation and policy is so important to make the world safe, because in the near future, a lot of power plants will be put into operation,especially the nuclear power plants, to make sure the security of power plants is vital for the total safety of the world.