Walt Boyes' Blog

Yesterday, at PCSF, ISA's new Certification Institute folks met with the core group that has been working on the Control Systems Security Certification Compliance Organization (pronounced "Costco")-- my god, folks, can't we think up better names for stuff!!!???--and it is pretty clear that there WILL be such an organization, and it will be under the ISA umbrella. You can't … [Read more...] about ISA does a really smart thing– twice in two days!

"There are," says Bill Rush of Rush Cyber Security, "over one hundred standards groups working on cybersecurity. The Council of Chairs operates as a one stop information center" and provides a combined glossary, liason with IEC, inter committee coordination, and an activity status site.j Walt Boyes BlackBerry service provided by Nextel … [Read more...] about Bill Rush on the Congress of Chairs

Bruce Landis suggested that "some of the possibilities" for action by DHS include "eliminating outside access to control systems." Ouch! All of the large vendors and some larger system integrators have put many eggs in the basket of remote services, such as optimization, APC, and asset management. Landis is NOT wrong, folks. If you can't access the control system from outside, … [Read more...] about From the department of "a wrench in the works…"

Perry Pederson, the director of the Homeland Security Department's Control Systems Security Program introduced Bruce Landis, the Deputy Asst. Secretary for Cyber Security and Telecommunications, who is a former cryptologist and intelligence analyst-- a former spook. "I worked as a, for lack of a better word, a spy for most of my life...but I decided that I needed to move into a … [Read more...] about Even more PCSF…

Going through the agenda, the presenters generally do not fall into the class of people I was just talking about: Art Manion, of CERT, Eric Byres and Joanne Byres, Joe Weiss, Kevin Staggs, Dale Peterson, and Nate Kube of Wurldtech...these people, in my humble opinion, actually have a really good grasp of the issues. Walt Boyes BlackBerry service provided by Nextel … [Read more...] about More PCSF…