SCADA: a critical vulnerability

Are we at risk of a system meltdown of Hollywood proportions? A recent presentation highlighting critical vulnerabilities in some of our most popular industrial control systems suggests so. Project Basecamp, a vulnerability assessment exercise carried out by security firm Digital Bond, assessed levels of security in Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) products. It found them badly wanting. Many control systems assume that they will be used within carefully controlled environments and react unpredictably – or disastrously – when sent unexpected input and yet we depend on them to run much of the critical infrastructure on which our daily lives depend. Danny Bradbury examines the dangers and asks what can be done.