Industrial control systems (ICS), which are part of the OT environment in industrial enterprises,
encompass
several types of control systems including supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems,
distributed control systems (DCS), and other smaller control system configurations such as
programmable
logic controllers (PLC), remote terminal units (RTU), intelligent electronic devices (IED) and other
field
devices.
ICS systems were originally designed to increase performance, reliability, and safety by reducing
manual efforts. Security was achieved by physical isolation, airgap (security by obscurity).
In the recent past attacks such as Stuxnet, Shamoon and Ukraine Energy, organizations have realized
the importance of safeguarding the ICS and IT-OT converged environments. Today the world is talking
about connecting everything to the internet. As the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) a
term used to draw together cyber-physical systems, Internet of things (IoT) and Internet of Services
starts to find more resonance with OEMs, system integrators and asset owners, it is a matter of time
that we will see a lot of ICS information being routed to sophisticated applications across the
enterprises through a wide area network where security by obscurity is no longer a valid protection.
Organizations and States have plans for connecting ICS to the Internet for applications such as
smart grids, smart cities, etc. Which significantly increases the risk of intrusion by malicious
actors.