The Convergence of Security, Configuration Change Management Compliance for Power Generation Automation Systems

摘要

The threats to the availability of the automation systems that control the generation of electricity globally are growing exponentially. Gone are the days where the control systems associated with burner management, coal handling, combustion, turbine and auxiliary functions were built on proprietary systems with closed operating systems and network protocols. These older systems were also typically isolated from the corporate information systems and other third parties. These systems were secure, but expensive. The market demanded that the systems vendors move to more cost effective alternatives that leveraged commercial off the shelf servers, workstations, switches, routers and networking protocols. The costs of the hardware for control systems declined as desired by the end users of the systems but with one troubling side effect. These new open systems are vulnerable!