21 Jan 11. Because of its very nature, critical infrastructure should be resilient. It should be able to withstand disastrous events, mitigate their impact, fail gracefully and recover quickly. But in a new era in which cyber war is a reality, resiliency is becoming a strategic necessity.
“The critical infrastructure is in play,” Black Hat founder Jeff Moss said in opening the annual Black Hat Federal cybersecurity conference last week. “If your assets are in play, you’d better be able to respond and recover faster.” What put these assets into play — or at least gave notice of the fact — was the Stuxnet worm, which Moss called “the topic that won’t die.” It was publicly revealed in July and since found to be a targeted attack against a specific process control system. It is widely believed to have been intended to disrupt Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which it might well have done, but 60,000 other infections have been identified around the world. (Source: GCN)