The SANS Oil and Gas Cybersecurity Summit 2019 will be in Houston all this week, September 16 – 22. The conference is being held at the Royal Sonesta. On Monday, the conference included paper presentations, exhibition, and kick off party. The rest of the week will consist of cybersecurity training courses.
I learned quite a bit yesterday. I found out that cybersecurity in the hydrocarbon industry does not start with virus protection and a firewall. It begins at the ground level with the process design and goes all the way up from there. That includes process engineering, instrument selection, PLC and DCS configuration, Cloud Storage, and cyber monitoring.
Something that really caught my ear is hearing about cybersecurity response companies. If you think you are being hacked, companies are available for immediate response. These firms know how to analyze suspicious patterns in a plant’s control system. They have access to the latest trends in hacking via not-for-profit consortiums who collect this information from its members. Response teams also have sophisticated platforms that have all the tools for investigating networks and can track the system with historical data regarding communications within the network.
There are a lot of good things happening at the Royal Sonesta this week. Please check the SANS website and come join us. https://www.sans.org/event/oil-gas-cybersecurity-summit-2019/summit-agenda?msc=home
CONTACT
Brian Glennon
SANS Summit Marketing Manager
BGlennon@sans.org
