Efficient Plant November 2017 - 6

column | editorial

Are You
Cyber
Secure?
Gary L. Parr
Editorial Director

Cybersecurity neophytes and
those who have let their knowledge lapse might get up to
speed by downloading this free
book at info.belden.com/iit/cyber-security-for-dummies.

6

| EFFICIENTPLANTMAG.COM

L

OSS OF DATA because of hardware failure or cyber attacks can be
a disaster for small businesses and
industrial users who don't take proactive measures to mitigate the inevitable.
Unfortunately, many businesses are
complacent and unprepared.
Two recent events have sparked new
interest in what is potentially a costly
ordeal. The first is the experience of a
friend who operates a successful online
business that involves a massive database
of photo-heavy blog postings and an
equally large collection of training videos. Her main machine crashed recently.
All was lost on her main hard drive.
This would have been a disaster for
her small business, but she long ago
heeded good advice and maintains an
off-site backup, using the Backblaze
(backblaze.com) system. After she
replaced her machine, the Backblaze
people sent her an external drive that
contained all of her data. She simply connected it, copied the files, and was back
up and running. That external drive service cost her $180, which was refunded
when she returned the drive. Basically,
she followed sound data-security practices and suffered a trivial inconvenience/
time loss when inevitable disaster hit.
The other experience is a recent event
I attended that was focused on industrial
data security and malware cyber attacks.
One of the factors that was prevalent,
and quite surprising, is that far too many
companies fail to set up off-site backup
systems. In a couple of the examples, the
malware also attacked on-site company
backups and some virtual machines.
After the event, I approached one of
the panel experts and stated my surprise
that data-backup rule number one was
not universally followed. He shrugged

his shoulders and said that, in fact, it was
a rather common failure.
Another vulnerability is malware that
finds its way into industrial networks.
For an answer to that worry, I headed
to Google looking for a list that I could
share. I hit the mother lode when I found
Industrial Cyber Security for Dummies,
a Belden/Tripwire Special Edition. The
free ebook, written by David Meltzer and
Jeff Lund, is available at info.belden.com/
iit/cyber-security-for-dummies.
The publication lists six common
attack methods:
 Internet-connected industrial-control system devices
 remote access using stolen or misused credentials
 external business-web interface
vulnerabilities
 infected USB and other connected media (according to experts in
addition to the authors, this is a more
common attack point than most
realize)
 phishing and spear-phishing email
 weak and unauthenticated communication protocols.
If your company has limited IT resources and/or you know you've been
less than vigilant about cybersecurity,
you might start improving things by
downloading the Dummies book and
at least get a beginner's view of where
you stand. If you just skimmed my
ramblings because you have every
confidence that your company has
things buttoned down, I suggest you
stop and call a meeting. The victims
discussed in the event I attended were
large, multi-site companies that had
active IT departments and every confidence their systems were secure. EP
gparr@efficientplantmag.com

NOVEMBER 2017
http://info.belden.com/ http://www.backblaze.com http://info.belden.com/iit/cyber-security-for-dummies http://www.EFFICIENTPLANTMAG.COM
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Efficient Plant November 2017
