CERN tests reveal security flaws with industrial network devices

The CERN high energy particle physics facility at Geneva, Switzerland will incorporate a wide range of COTS industrial control systems within its next generation particle collider, the LHC. In particular, the Internet will be used to facilitate the remote access for accelerator and particle physicists and system experts based at several hundred locations around the globe. The integration of Industrial Ethernet and COTS PLCs within the LHC program focuses extreme attention on the industrial network cyber-security requirement. CERN's response has been to conduct operational research on the security resilience of networked industrial devices. As test team lead Stefan Lüders reports here, industrial networked devices put through the organisation's test procedures have generally shown up unexpected vulnerabilities.