Today, the industralized world lives in symbiosis with control systems: it depends on power distribution, oil production, public transport, automatic production lines. While the convenience is at hand, still too many control systems are designed without any security in mind, lack basic security protections, and are not even robust enough to withstand basic attacks. The Stuxnet worm attacking Siemens PLCs in 2010 was another close call. Attackers currently enjoy hacking control systems, and aim to switch lights off. This presentation shall recap the current situation and outline why the presenter is still waiting for a change in paradigm.
Stefan Lüders, PhD, graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and joined CERN in 2002. Being initially developer of a common safety system used in all four experiments at the Large Hadron Collider, he gathered expertise in cyber-security issues of control systems. Consequently in 2004, he took over responsibilities in securing CERN's accelerator and infrastructure control systems against cyber-threats. Subsequently, he joined the CERN Computer Security Incident Response Team and is today heading this team as CERN’s Computer Security Officer with the mandate to coordinate all aspects of CERN’s computer security --- office Computing security, computer centre security, GRID computing security and control system security --- whilst taking into account CERN’s operational needs. Dr. Lüders has presented on these topics at many different occasions to international bodies, governments, and companies, and published several articles.
