Asset discovery must not disrupt fragile systems
A scan that is routine on IT equipment can stop a controller.
These devices have limited resources, ancient network stacks and no expectation of being probed. Sending them unexpected traffic has caused outages, and the engineers remember. Passive listening, vendor tooling and configuration review are the acceptable methods, and understanding why matters if you want operations to agree to anything.
More on OT and ICS
- A cyber command can have physical consequencesThe keystroke has a lever on the end
- Legacy does not mean unnecessaryOld, and holding the whole line
- Patching OT requires process contextThe patch waits for the plant
- Segmentation protects process zonesBulkheads, not one big hold
- Remote maintenance changes the plant perimeterThe fence now goes round their kitchen table
- Process anomalies can be security signalsThe plant noticed first