Information security of industrial control systems: possible attack vectors and protection methods
Industrial control systems are employed in numerous critical infrastructure assets including oil and gas pipelines, water distribution systems, electrical power grids, nuclear plants and manufacturing facilities. Today the problem of ensuring information security of the industrial control system is quite acute. Specialists from different countries conducted a large number of studies in this field. The ability of intruders to discover industrial devices accessible via the Internet and to obtain unauthorized access to them is of concern to information security professionals. The Shodan search engine provides the attacker with a powerful tool to identify industrial control systems and their components and subsequent malicious effects on them. In this article the author describes the typical industrial control system, presents general analy-sis of the security of modern ICS and describes possible attack vectors on the ICS. An example of obtaining unauthorized access to industrial control systems using the Shodan search engine is described and recommendations how to ensure information security of the industrial control system are given.