Improving Cybersecurity for Industrial Control Systems

The vulnerability of industrial control systems (ICS) to electronic intrusion and malware has recently been well documented in both the technical and popular press. Despite significant attention and much progress over the past 15 years, threats continue to evolve about as fast as preventive solutions. This paper reviews the root causes of ICS cybersecurity vulnerabilities, looks at some common defensive measures and then discusses a new approach to ICS field device cybersecurity, the security preprocessor. This device offers advanced communications security and role-based access control for legacy ICS installations, and utilizes a verified microkernel, with proven security properties.