Diminishing pipeline and control system vulnerability

摘要

The very nature of today's global energy sector raises security issues requiring solutions that rival world government covert intrusion detection techniques. Certainly the pipelines that deliver oil and gas to market and the associated control systems (now remotely operated) appear to present opportunity for breaches of security. Besides the industry's global distribution, it has been noted in sector forums that the age of plant and pipeline facilities plus the digital operation of substation control networks and data distribution Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems make front-end and back-end cyber attack a very real threat. If a hacker succeeds in bringing down an energy company's SCADA system, the environmental and economic impacts could be severe. The Critical Infrastructure Act was put into effect to deal with the specific threats.