Robust Control System Networks by Langner, Ralph (2011) Hardcover

by Ralph Langner

The Stuxnet computer virus, originally discovered in July 2010, qualified as a turning point for control system security. While that malware did not cause destructive damage outside its designated target, it hit the Western world like the Sputnik shock. But doing more risk assessments, installing more firewalls, updating antivirus signatures more frequently, applying more security patches more often, are simply more of what has been done already. This is just more of where we were when Stuxnet was discovered, and where we continue to unprepared and vulnerable. Robust Control Systems will guide you through alternative concepts and methods that do not necessarily replace the existing school of thought—which largely borrows from IT security—but complement it. You’ll learn invaluable new approaches that lay out the theoretical and methodological foundation—a foundation that the author and many other practitioners had already been doing mostly using the control theory of complex automation and control networks, along with other best-practices to make such systems more robust. Plant planners, operators and systems maintenance engineers will recognize that the author has skillfully blended several well-established concepts and methods from control theory, systems theory, cybernetics, and quality engineering. For example, one could very well read this text as quality engineering applied to IACS design and operation, remembering the words of quality pioneer William Edwards “If I had to reduce my message to management to just a few words, I’d say it all has to do with reducing variation.” “Ralph is truly one of the experts in control system cyber security. His work on Stuxnet was superb.” Joe Weiss, PE, CISM, CRISC, ISA Fellow, IEEE Senior Member, author of Protecting Industrial Control Systems from Electronic Threat, published by Momentum Press

Hardcover

First published September 1, 2011

Reviews

[Allwhitenoise · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprisingly captivating read. Computer genre books carry a worse stigma than cocaine or confederate flags, but this one really broke through the (often deserved) stereotype of "ughhhh" and held my interest through most of it. The key was all in the POV; the author lived through the shitstorm of Stuxnet so the reader can't help but pick up on that direct emotion and intensity of the experience.
It's not just a computer forensics guidebook, it's a story, a cautionary tale. Fun read!