Ransomware - Is it also the beginning of cyber war (Introduction)

This is the first introduction of "Cyber Security" in the series of knowledge sharing articles to be published.

A year has gone by under the fear of systems being affected and servers being hijacked due to ransomware. Not merely fear of safeguarding our own infrastructure was running on our minds but the thought of "what if our customers are affected ? " did bother us. A valve left unclosed in an application, would help intruders enter and take the system down.

Not sure how many are aware or if media has covered, but One of the Major Indian utility has been hit by Ransomware. Yes, you read it right in bold and capital "Indian Major Utility has been affected by Ransomware in the month of February" (Just FYI.. The utility is North Eastern power utility ). For Many of the Indian utilities, cybersecurity is "taken for granted " or " Compromised". As solution providers, I See it’s the responsibility to win the customer for setting up the proper standard system . "Adversity breeds opportunity". This gives us an opportunity in helping our customers and wins their confidence by presenting our awareness of the cybersecurity. Wondering what is that need to be built as a framework for this security? No need of reinventing the wheel.

Every two years(from the knowledge I have ) North America Electric Reliability Council (NERC) releases the standard to be adopted for ensuring safe and secure environment under the program "‘Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP)". The latest Version -5 for bulk electric systems (BES) summarizes the standards (Please find the specifications in my article NERC CIP Version - 5 standards.It will be a handful information when you talk to the customers and also when the solutions are being developed.

However at an outset what we are talking about is the IT being affected by the security threats and all the standards drafted as part of CIP - 5 also help IT being safeguarded, but is that enough? What about OT?

Not sure if any standards are available or if any organizations have a mechanism to handle it. Do share across if you know any for reading.

Security guidelines from karthz

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Karthik Sagar

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