It's a scary new world in process control, but you can defend your plant against cyber attack

There is no doubt that cyber attacks pose a potential threat to process control systems and their associated safety systems. The process control system's cyber domain, however, has significant differences, such as priorities, computer hardware, different network architectures and mixture of different communication protocols, from the traditional IT environment. A significant difference is that a successful cyber attack on a control system that results in a loss of control can have serious life and limb consequences, as well significant financial loss should a safety incident result. The solution is to recognize that there is a potential threat and to perform a cyber risk assessment to identify existing vulnerabilities, risks and security gaps, and to develop and implement a plan to address the cyber risks and lower them to an acceptable risk tolerance in a timely manner. The priority should be to protect the 'family jewels' and high-risk processes. Cybersecurity standards are available from ISA/IEC, as is guidance from the U.S. government.