OT and ICS security¶

A circuit breaker that opens on command is doing its job. One that opens because an attacker sent the command is also doing its job. The two are indistinguishable until the lights go out. The systems controlling power, heat, water, and industrial processes were engineered for the first. The second was not in the requirements.

This section covers the gap: protocols designed without authentication, architecture built for availability rather than defence, coding patterns for embedded systems where memory safety has physical consequences, and ten incidents that document what the gap looks like when it is used.