‘Process industries are equally vulnerable to cyber attacks’

Threat of cyber-attacks to critical infrastructure like oil and gas refineries, power grids, hospitals etc are increasing day by day. In order to explain the severity of such attacks and how vulnerable such industries are, Amitava Biswas, country head, Honeywell Process Solutions helps us take a closer look.

Excerpts

How vulnerable are India's large industrial infrastructure organizations to cyber attacks?

Cyber espionage hit the headlines recently in the first week of September 2012 with reports of a series of hacker attacks. State-owned Saudi Aramco, the world's biggest oil producer, and Qatar gas exporter Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Co, known as RasGas, were hit last month by a virus called Shamoon. In 2000, the Interior Ministry of Russia reported that hackers seized temporary control of the system regulating gas flows in natural gas pipelines.

According to industry estimates, over the last decade, India has seen an increase in the number of cyber-attacks, from 2,565 in 2008 to 8,266 in 2009 and 10,315 in 2010. Recent example is a cyber-security breach being suspected as the reason for the recent power grid failure and for the North-east India crisis.

Process industries are equally vulnerable to cyber-attacks and need to leverage technology to protect their assets, intellectual property and profitability. Automation network security and performance has become a critical component of plant safety in the process industries. As control networks continue to expand and integrate to business systems, the risks and complexity of cyber vulnerabilities must be addressed with the same vigilance as process safety risks assessments.

There is a critical need for the manufacturing sector in India to be aware of the cyber landscape. Why?

The manufacturing sector is exposed to high risks. Risks in process industries increases due to insufficient manpower to manage a security program, increased emphasis on uptime, availability and reliability, increase in industry and government regulations or standards, targeted malicious cyber security threats, complex array of tools, standards and best practices, tighter linkage between business and process information and increased accessibility requirements.

Manufacturing companies must ensure themselves with latest technology and adhere to international best practices. A comprehensive cyber-security management system, a scientific approach, incorporation of the best automation technology offers an effective solution for the growing cyber-security challenges in today's operating environment.

Where is Honeywell's role critical in this scenario?

Honeywell's Industrial Information Technology (IT) focuses on reducing or removing risk from today's control systems environment to protect customer's automation investments. Honeywell already has been helping companies across 15 countries.

For example, Noranda Income Fund (NIF), a privately held zinc refinery, needed to replace their aging IT networking infrastructure at their CEZinc processing plant at the same time as they recognized the need to secure their industrial control systems from the business LAN. Honeywell provided Industrial Cyber Security Designs a network architecture for the company. n