Currently, industrial infrastructures are suffering more attacks than ever before, and it is expected that attacks on these types of infrastructures will continue to grow exponentially in the coming years. This is why, throughout this article, an analysis will be made of a group of cybercriminals and their standard attack, showing how information can be obtained on the modus operandi, when and by what tactics and techniques they managed to attack an industrial infrastructure
The industrial environment, especially the energy sector, is one of sectors that is suffering the most from cyber-attacks. This trend has been increasing in recent years, as this is one of the most information-sensitive sectors and can cause major problems, both economically and socially.
One of the best examples of malware attacks is BlackEnergy. This malware became known for being able to compromise several electricity distributors on 23 December 2015, causing households in the Ivano-Frankvisk region of Ukraine (a population of around 1.5 million) to be without electricity.
For this reason, due to seriousness of this type of cyberattacks, it is necessary to continue researching and investing in industrial cybersecurity, to reduce the damage caused by this type of cyber-attack in industrial environments.
The OPC UA (OPC unified architecture) communication protocol is the most modern standard presented by OPC Foundation. Currently, the OPC UA protocol is one of the most widely used in industrial environments, due to its ability to interconnect different devices, regardless of their base protocol and vendor.
Throughout this article, a technical assessment of the protocol will be conducted, explaining in detail the technical capabilities that allow a high level of cybersecurity to be implemented without causing performance losses in the devices.
The security gaps and issues that exist within industrial environments are sometimes unknown to many information consumers. This article aims to bring first hand some of the most interesting issues and attack trends in 2023 in the industrial sector. Different industrial cybersecurity incidents so far this year will be described at a high level and a comparison will be made with the trend presented at the beginning of the year.
The automotive sector is currently moving towards electric consumption, as society is becoming more and more aware of the problems that environmental pollution can cause.
One of the big challenges of this trend is how to charge electric vehicles, for which charging points are currently used.
But like most of today's technological devices, they will also need to have access to an Internet connection in order to be able to monitor in real time the use of the station, the customer's banking information, etc.
For this reason, in this article we want to talk about the different risks or cyber-attacks that these charging points may suffer and the problems they may cause, as this is a very important sector for society and one that is capable of managing very sensitive information
In recent years, the constant technological evolution has made possible a large number of advances that would have been unthinkable years ago. In industrial environments, one of the latest developments that promises to stand out and is here to stay are virtual PLC.
The virtualization of these controllers will make it possible to decouple the hardware from the software, i.e. the software will be installed in the engineering stations, while the hardware will remain in another area outside the production area.
One of the most important activities in the industry is the industrial maintenance because it could extend the service life of devices. This activity has always been more mechanically oriented, but currently it might talk a new type of maintenance because the new industry technologies and increase of cyberattacks.
This maintenance is more related with the informatic world and in this article will be able to see the principals characteristics and the actions to be taken to ensure that it is carried out correctly.
The programming of PLCs is a fundamental part of the initial phases when building and designing industrial plants. About that environment, the company will base all its operations in that environment making the configuration of these controllers a critical element. When it comes to programming these devices there are a series of steps and best practices that take advantage of the native functionalities available and that involve little or no need to resort to a PLC programmer, protecting the device in a simple way with minimum spend on resource.
