SANS Institute

Special Events

Critical Infrastructure Problem Solving Symposium
- Marcus Sachs, SANS Senior Instructor, Discussion Leader
- Wednesday, January 16, 2008
- 7:00pm - 9:00pm

Join SANS, senior leaders, and technologists for a special Problem Solving Symposium focused on five major concerns identified by critical infrastructure security professionals. This Symposium is open to all attendees of the SANS Process Control and SCADA Security Summit, Pre-Summit Courses, and the SANS Security 2008 training event.

This Symposium will begin with breakout discussions of the five concerns at both the security professional and executive levels. After these breakouts, all participants will return for panel discussion hosted by Marcus Sachs with information security professionals and senior leaders discussing the challenges and recommendations from their breakout sessions. Following the panel discussion, time will be provided for senior leaders and their technologists to meet and discuss how best to execute on these top threats immediately upon their return home.

The top five major concerns identified by critical infrastructure security professionals during SANS Network Security 2007 in Las Vegas this past September were:

1. Severity of the security issues faced by our critical infrastructure asset owners.
2. Funding
3. Legacy systems in operation that no longer have vendor support for the control systems, devices, or mechanisms.
4. Procurement and addressing the contract language to ensure that the responsibility is placed on the vendor for ensuring the control systems are updated for security though out the product's life cycle.
5. Lack of corporate mandated security processes for control systems hampers efforts to secure critical components from internal and external cyber attacks.