No one in this industry planned their installation or products around national interests or for resiliency in the face of a nation-state attack, but we're increasingly called to look back on decades of installations, some over 20 years old, that need to be protected in the name of the public good.

As nations around the world seek to reduce the attack surface of their vulnerable critical infrastructure, sectors like bulk electric services, healthcare, manufacturing, and water/wastewater are under tremendous pressure to address systemic risks. This, in turn, places pressure on automation component vendors and system integrators to address cybersecurity not only in our newest products, but in systems that were installed and operational decades ago.

This presentation looks at the market forces acting on end users, integrators and product vendors in the United States and lays out a “critical chain” of cooperation needed to make meaningful progress in addressing cybersecurity risk. Taken in its totality, it's a task that makes even the strongest among us wish we were cleaning the Augean stables instead.