Everyone has heard of the breach in FL when a hacker decided to remote access the levels of sodium hydroxide from 100mg/L to 11,100mg/L. 

Luckily this was caught by a quick acting operator within a few minutes but what if they weren’t as lucky in the future or in locations with even less cybersecurity.  I can’t talk about cybersecurity without talking about ransomware.  This is where they hold you hostage until you pay and then you are not even sure that will work. There are safer ways to maintain control of your system and to keep the hackers out.

One great and easy solution is removing the accessibility to your system so that hackers can’t even find access to get into the system. 

Cloud based systems are a way of removing this access. XiO uses a secure cloud SCADA service to accomplish this very thing. Yes, not everything is fool proof but they assume that their are no good people in the world and assume that there are break-ins to the system. When you are constantly reviewing, updating and tracking, the ability to do damage is extremely small. Also, they can set hard limits that can be changed or manipulated like in the FL hack. They would have had a max number set not allowing the dose to go above a certain threshold, so even if it were to be compromised it can’t be maxed out and do harm to the plant or the public.  

Last but not least, all the PLC’s and SCADA equipment goes away. 

No need to have the system onsite in a secured airconditioned room. No need to have a company or someone come in and do system upgrades because they are no longer needed and are done automatically. Doing system upgrades on site means that the system is vulnerable until the upgrade is in place, and who knows how long it will be vulnerable right? 

Having real-time info and data on a cloud-based system takes the system security out of the hands of the operations staff. 

The operations staff need to be able to do their job without worry of an outside threat. The cloud option gives access and the ability to see but only a chosen few to change. 

XiO does everything on their end to keep your system safe and secure and they implement instantaneous security changes throughout the entire system if and when needed.  This is a real time update and no one has to set up a time and date to be on site to do them.  Amazon uses this very same system, and if they can use it to send you dog food or electronics why can’t you use it to protect our most precious resource?