The authentication of identity is still an important aspect of maintaining effective security measures in the energy sector. “In the challenge of securing information and information technology, and in the challenge of preventing cyber threats, often the lack of strong identification has become one of weakest spots in the overall defense mechanism. Too often, existing credentials can be abused, have been badly implemented or managed, and lead to major vulnerabilities or incidents.”20
Organizations are moving away from the high-trust model of the shared log-on, not because they don’t have faith in their employees, but in the interest of localizing the impact of accidental or malicious occurrences. In the long-term they will continue trying to overcome technological constraints. Utilities will continue to employ standard russia phone numbers IT tools such as Sysco and Juniper, but other facets of their operation (relays, RTU’s, PLC,s) don’t have the same protective systems. Until they can purchase it from vendors, they may have to mitigate threats with a local firewall. Seemingly innocuous information like the network time, the location of a control center, the IP address, even the vendor that’s chosen to run their infrastructure, may be important to those with ill-intent bent on committing a cyber-attack.
IT security tools are configured to monitor the “normal” behavior of log-ins, but they are weak when confronted with advanced attacks. Adversaries don’t just want to permeate the control system, they want to inflict damage in a situation where the operator doesn’t intervene and the safety system is not performing adequately. Operators can’t really tell if the data they are seeing is accurate or if it has been manipulated because there is no technology available to validate whether or not the information is accurate.