Remote maintenance changes the plant perimeter
Every remote support arrangement extends the plant's boundary to wherever that engineer is sitting.
Their laptop, their network and their supplier's security posture are now part of yours, usually without assessment. It is the same third-party risk conversation as anywhere else, with the difference that the consequence is physical and the contract was signed by procurement years ago.
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
- Process anomalies can be security signalsThe plant noticed first
- Asset discovery must not disrupt fragile systemsListen to it, do not knock on it