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GCN Home > 12/11/06 issue

DHS, industry use LOGIIC to combat cyberthreats

Joint exercise focuses on protecting systems at oil and gas facilities

By Kerri Hostetler, GCN Staff

The Homeland Security Department has teamed with 13 organizations on a 12-month project to secure the process control systems of the nation’s oil and gas industries against cybersecurity threats.

A cyberattack on the control and data systems of electric power plants, or oil and gas refineries and pipelines—two of 17 pieces of the nation’s critical infrastructure—could potentially bring the country to a halt. The problem is compounded because private companies control 85 percent to 90 percent of the country’s critical infrastructure—leaving the government few avenues to ensure that IT systems are secure.

Real-life process

Linking the Oil and Gas Industry to Improve Cybersecurity (LOGIIC) was born out of the Cyber Security Research and Development Center, which is supported by DHS and run by SRI International of Menlo Park, Calif.

LOGIIC, for the first time, brought government, industry, research labs, security vendors and process control technology vendors together to recreate a real-life process control system test bed. They then attacked the test bed, at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., with viruses, worms and cyberterrorism techniques to see if they could fix system vulnerabilities.

“The goal was to come up with technology, then demonstrate the technologies that could reduce vulnerabilities in infrastructure. Oil and gas should be commended for doing just that,” said Doug Maughan, DHS’ program manager for cybersecurity research and development.

The potential costs of an infrastructure attack are significant. The Northeast Blackout on April 14, 2003, left 50 million customers and parts of eight states and Canada without power. The outage cost an estimated $7 billion to $10 billion in financial losses, and shut down parts of a 2 million barrel-per-day pipeline and airports in 13 cities, according to a report by an electricity consumers research council. Terrorism played no role in the power outages.

But DHS and the private sector created LOGIIC to safeguard against an attack that could create the same result, as well as other scenarios, such as disruptions of oil refineries or distribution operations.

More news on related topics: IT Security, Enterprise Architecture, Homeland Security



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