I am writing this from my home office in Texas. Texas isn’t just my home. It is the home of the best brisket on the planet, some of the most iconic high tech brands in the world, and energy production that powers the global economy. In the morning, I might meet with one of the fastest growing SaaS companies in the country about achieving the rigorous FedRAMP certification so they can sell to federal agencies.
If you enter the term “Purdue Model” into your favorite search engine, the resulting images will vary considerably. There’s almost no better way to stir up an Operational Technology (OT) security conversation than to begin debating what belongs on Level 1 or Level 3 of the model. You might even find some diagrams place operator Human-Machine Interfaces at Level 3. Notably, the original 1990 publication defines “operator’s console” as a Level 1 entity.
It seems that the most popular topics in cybersecurity for the last year has been zero trust as well as the convergence of Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT). These developments are good, as they signal some positive motion towards better overall security. Some of the current risks are worth noting, with a forward glance to protecting specific industries such as oil and gas production plants.
2021 was a challenging year for manufacturers, energy producers, and utilities. A chaotic pandemic year created an opportunity for threat actors to take advantage of disruption to infrastructure integrity and IT to OT operational dependencies, something they achieved with frightening rapidity and effectiveness.
The growing value of business data, the vulnerability of networked systems, and the importance of fuel infrastructure have made oil and gas companies major targets for malicious hackers. Already, the industry has been the victim of several high-profile attacks. The Colonial Pipeline hack compromised the business’s networks, shut down its operations, and deprived the East Coast of a pipeline that supplies nearly half the region’s fuel.
