Can those entrusted with industrial information systems still afford to think of hackers or malicious software as an occasional annoyance that might tweak a company's finances or reputation? How secure are the systems that control the valves and sensors responsible for the safe operation of a chemical plant or a nuclear reactor?

Traditionally, such systems benefited from "security through obscurity" – the use of idiosyncratic operating systems and network protocols. But today, more of them are driven by a commercial operating system such as Windows and on Internet Protocol networks.

At Baseline.

[ Read more ]