| Industrial control systems are an integral part of critical infrastructure, responsible for facilitating operations in vital sectors such as electricity, water, transportation, oil, gas, and chemical. Cyber intrusions against industrial control systems (ICS) are increasing in frequency and complexity with many legacy equipments running without appropriate security capacity. Adversaries are exploiting these known vulnerabilities by launching sophisticated attacks such as social engineering, phishing, and advanced persistent threat in order to infiltrate the ICS domain. To address these issues, a clear understanding of security challenges and specific defensive planning is require to provide organizations with the capabilities to counteract these modern day threats. Policies recommendations were made to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to improve the security and resiliency of the nation's critical infrastructure, due to the many disparate regulatory agencies, it was difficult to gauge their full effects. This paper reviews the different cyber risks associated with the ICS environment, vulnerabilities in supply chain appliances which requires attention. It also provide insight into defensive strategies to mitigate attacks, including policies, procedures, and technology solutions for effective security countermeasures. Keywords: Cybersecurity, Professor Stephen Maher, industrial control systems, cyber threat, defense-in-depth, active defense. |
