The TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) network is a standard developed in Europe in the 1990s by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute), whose emergence came because of the management of telephone communications for extreme cases, in which standard communication via mobile might not work properly. Therefore, it can be considered as an alternative network for communications with emergency and security services to be always operational. TETRA unifies different digital radio interface alternatives for communications and serves as a standard for the construction of private mobile networks or PMR (Private Mobile Radio).
There are areas where the deployment of an industrial plant requires satellite communications such as those provided by VSAT (Very-Small-Aperture Terminal) technology. This technology allows the exchange of information through an antenna made up of different terminals, installed in remote locations with the connection capacity of a central hub, thanks to a satellite. Obviously, this technology has a cost that not all companies can afford, but it covers coverage needs in places where there are no other communication options. This type of communications is not only widespread in the industry, but its also sometimes used by banks to perform banking transactions at ATM’s. These communications are not so well known by many experts in the industrial sector, and it can be a good opportunity to bridge the knowledge gap so that readers can learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of VSAT communications.
The proliferation of cybersecurity incidents in industrial environments has given rise to a huge concern in the various existing sectors. Some of them, such us the energy sector, are choosing the path taking in the banking sector with the TIBER-EU framework. In addition, many governments are allocating large sums of money to their government agencies to develop strategic plans in which that exercises are included
The programming of PLCs is a fundamental part of the initial phases when building and designing industrial plants. About that environment, the company will base all its operations in that environment making the configuration of these controllers a critical element. When it comes to programming these devices there are a series of steps and best practices that take advantage of the native functionalities available and that involve little or no need to resort to a PLC programmer, protecting the device in a simple way with minimum spend on resource.
In order to increase security levels in OT networks, there are now solutions that monitor networks, devices and configurations, actively looking for anomalies and possible security flaws and intrusions that could take place. However, there are other types of attacks on ICS that are carried out on a completely different plane, where anomaly analysis systems can’t reach. These are attacks on analog sensors.
Demilitarized zones, also known as DMZs (demilitarized zones), are used for the secure exchange of information between computers on a network that we want to protect and an external network that needs to access those computers. DMZs are widely used in the IT sector and also in the OT sector, but the equipment and services they host are not exactly the same.
Although the use of black channel is associated with physical safety, it is also part of logical safety. Here we can see how the black channel intervenes in communications, its contribution, advantages, use cases and the differences between it and the white channel.
This post will analyse the vulnerabilities associated with Log4Shell, detected in the library Log4j, which is found in infinite software products both in technical and industrial fields. Although there have been other instances of more sophisticated vulnerabilities, the problem with this one is area of exposure.
With the arrival of industry 4.0 to companies’ productive processes, including IIoT and Cloud, the need to control and monitor the ICS that remotely make them up arises. However, said access points should be established securely and in a controlled manner, mainly due to the criticality of these assets. This article discusses good practices, tools and methods that can be used to establish remote connections to OT networks as securely as possible.