Feds Offer $20M For Critical Open Source Energy Network Cybersecurity Tools

Comments of the type "just don't connect to the Internet" are a little short-sighted. Much of the energy, water, wastewater, etc. etc. infrastructure is remote. Think substations, liftstations, pumpstations, smart switches, etc. etc. For some of these a dedicated network may make sense, but there's a huge cost saving in using the existing networking buildout, ie the Internet, to monitor and indeed control these types of facilities. Many of these are small, a controller, something that does something (pump, switch, whatever) and a small amount of monitoring.

Securing this IS a challenge, espeically since the vast majority of the equipment used in these facility was (and continues to be) designed with no inherent security, but having someone drive to a remote facility to check it, or install an end-to-end custom network is a much bigger project and is simply not possible - taxpayer would (rightly) object to the cost.

There are many other situation where there is a solid "business case" for having an asset connected to the Internet, remote maintenance, tracking, etc. Not necessarily as critical, but would still benefit from a secure solution.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/poMQkGxsghE/story01.htm

front door alyssa bustamante protandim weightless ellen degeneres jcpenney yeardley love nba all star reserves