NATO Energy Center of Excellence in Vilnius publishes a Guide for Protecting Industrial Automation and Control Systems Against Cyber Incidents in Critical Energy Infrastructure

By Mr. Vytautas Butrimas NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence

The NATO Energy Security Center of Excellence (NATO ENSEC COE) has published a “Guide for protecting industrial automation and control systems against cyber incidents in critical energy infrastructure” on its website, written by Mr. Vytautas Butrimas. The NATO ENSEC COE prepared this Guide in response to unsettling trends in cyberspace where a wide spectrum of threat actors have chosen to target critical energy and other infrastructures.

The Guide focuses on the technologies used to monitor and control physical processes found in the energy sector and is the result of 12 years of research and work at the policy-making level, which included site visits to operators of liquid fuel pipelines, natural gas pipelines and electric power grids. It reviews new challenges and vulnerabilities put forward by the introduction of digital technologies to the energy sector and illustrates them with an analysis of notable cyber incidents like the Colonial Pipeline incident of May 2021. As a result of this analysis Mr. Butrimas proposes a way ahead which includes consideration of a comprehensive enterprise cybersecurity program together with the tools that can be used to improve the safety, reliability, performance and resilience of the technologies used in the energy sector vital to national economy, national security and the well-being of society.