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Welcome to the official blog of the International Society of Automation (ISA).

This blog covers numerous topics on industrial automation such as operations & management, continuous & batch processing, connectivity, manufacturing & machine control, and Industry 4.0.

The material and information contained on this website is for general information purposes only. ISA blog posts may be authored by ISA staff and guest authors from the automation community. Views and opinions expressed by a guest author are solely their own, and do not necessarily represent those of ISA. Posts made by guest authors have been subject to peer review.

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Newsweek Vantage Report on Cyber Risks to Critical Infrastructure: ISA's the Expert Partner

Newsweek Vantage recently published an independent report on cyber risks to critical infrastructureand the International Society of Automation (ISA) served as its expert partner.

Titled “Weathering the Perfect Storm: Securing the Cyber-Physical Systems of Critical Infrastructure,” the report surveyed 415 executives at critical infrastructure organizations to learn whether they are taking a holistic approach to security for operations technology (OT) and information technology (IT). Among other takeaways, the survey found that a holistic approach is a priority for most—and that more than a third of respondents said a cyber breach was the motivating factor.

Other key findings from the report include:

  • IT and OT still don’t play well together at many organizations, despite years of effort. Nearly a third of respondents said the primary obstacle is cultural—in other words, that employees are resistant to change.
  • Nearly every executive surveyed said their organization had experienced a security breach within the last year. Almost two-thirds said IT systems were the source of vulnerability leading to at least one of their incidents. A third also attributed their vulnerability to a lack of IT/OT integration, and a quarter added that a lack of secure physical access controls contributed to system vulnerabilities as well.
  • Most organizations are at least partway along the path to IT/OT convergence. 68 percent of respondents said their organizations have integrated some of their OT, IT, and physical systems, and are still working on others. Far fewer—20 percent—have already integrated everything, and fewer still—only 11 percent—have not integrated anything.

ISA helped the Newsweek staff develop the concept, research the topic, create and adapt the survey, and analyze the results. 

Eric Cosman, a consulting engineer and the 2020 ISA president, as well as Steve Mustard, an independent consultant and the incoming 2021 ISA president, contributed to the report as subject-matter experts.

The full report is available for download from Newsweek Vantage.

Kara Phelps
Kara Phelps
Kara Phelps was the content manager for ISA from 2019-2021.

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