Enhancing control system security for SCADA and real-time systems

About the seminar

Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) plays a very important role in our daily lives. It is these computer systems that control the operation of our power plants, water treatment plants, transportation systems and other critical industrial systems we use everyday.

SCADA systems are of the greatest interest on security assessment because of their unusual interconnection to critical infrastructure control equipment which ranges from valves in oil and gas pipelines to switches and breakers in the national electric grid. If compromised, these systems provide a path to many critical end devices and to other systems.

As events in 2010 showed, an insecure SCADA system and subsequent intrusion/hack can have catastrophic consequences. These range from negative impacts on environment, production, finance and all the way to potential human injury.

There is no doubt we need to understand the threats and how to ensure security of these systems in order to enhance control system security.

In an attempt to stimulate greater learning, networking and information sharing, the IET’s Cyber Security for Industrial Control Systems seminar in Glasgow takes a slightly different slant to your typical seminar and will feature a mixture of live demonstrations, traditional presentations and panel discussions.

Unlike events delivered by others, it’s all well and good to state what a systems engineer should and should not do, but to actually demonstrate what can happen if you do not follow this advice and how to protect from them can be the hard part.

The IET understands not only your compliance issues but also the business and operational challenges you’re now facing. Together with leading experts, we’ll help devise a highly effective security strategy for both short and long-term basis.

Join us in Glasgow where we will assess your individual security needs and practical ways of maintaining your protection with technical solutions.

• What are we trying to secure and what is the real threat?
• When deploying security for SCADA and real-time systems, what computing, network and protection mechanisms must be designed to ensure security between corporate and control systems?
• How can your organisation implement a management mechanism to support such a system without itself becoming a single point of attack or failure?
• How have different industries worked to tackle cyber threats to these systems?
• What core research has been carried out to better understand issues of trust in SCADA smart grid and real-time systems?

From previous high profile events, the need to improve the relationship between Government and industry regarding cyber security is a constantly recurring theme.

We’ve got an impressive array of speakers lined up so you can grasp the finer points of SCADA security enabling you to gain the practical knowledge you need to ensure security within your organisation.

Who should attend

This seminar benefits those who have management responsibility for the security of their computers and networks of control systems. This is a must attend event for SCADA engineers, IT professionals and senior directors/management

However, anyone working within security in critical national infrastructure and non-traditional sectors such as energy, defence and telecommunications will benefit from this day, as we will learn that SCADA systems, while vulnerable in some areas, simply can’t employ all security control measures that a typical corporate network would employ.

• SCADA engineers / specialists
• IT professionals
• Technology / security professionals
• Control and instrumentation engineers
• Systems engineer
• Plant managers, engineering and operations management, project managers, automation and control managers, process control and SCADA engineers, plant engineers
• Chief Information Officers (CIO) / Chief Technology Officers (CTO)
• Information and security professionals
• Control system vendor developers and integrators
• Government leaders responsible for policy and regulation of utilities and other process control users
• Academic and research laboratory leaders
• Telecommunications
• Power market