Joe Weiss was a great source and inspiration for my article Securing the U.S. Power Grid from Cyber Attack. I told him to send me early information about his annual ICS Cyber Security Conference. Here is the info. Mark the date if you are at all touched by cyber security. (By the way, ICS–industrial control systems.)
Weiss says, “ICS cyber incidents continue to occur and we continue to learn. Consequently, Applied Control Solutions (ACS) will host the 11th ICS Cyber Security Conference in the Washington DC area September 20-22, 2011. The Conference is an international information sharing conference explicitly focused on securing ICSs. There have already been more than 200 ICS cyber incidents including major electric outages, shutdowns of nuclear power plants, Smart Grid incidents, water system failures, pipeline failures, and transportation accidents. Current IT security policies and practices would not have prevented many of the cases and in some cases, the incidents were actually caused by inappropriate IT policies, technologies, or testing. Last year, the ACS Conference held the first technical discussions of Stuxnet.”
Sample topics to be discussed include:
- ICS cyber impacts on San Bruno natural gas pipeline rupture that killed eight
- McAfee and Ponemon Institute reports on cyber security and lack of ICS input
- Network issues and how they have affected actual ICS cyber incidents
- Panel session on criminal investigations of ICS cyber incidents
- Hacking non-Windows field controllers including results and disclosure issues
- Joint US/Israeli program to secure RTUs
- DOD discussion on cyberwar
- ICS trends identified from SCADASec
- Technical results from analyzing Stuxnet impact on PLCs
- ICS risk – what does that really mean to nuclear and other facilities
- Demonstrations of hacking industrial controllers
- Others being finalized
