ICS410: ICS/SCADA Security Essentials™

The Global Industrial Cyber Security Professional (GICSP) certification is a vendor-neutral, practitioner focused certification that bridges IT, engineering, and cyber security to achieve security throughout the industrial control systems lifecycle. The GICSP assesses a diverse set of professionals who engineer or support control systems and share responsibility for the security of these environments.

• Industrial control system components, purposes, deployments, significant drivers, and constraints
• Control system attack surfaces, methods, and tools
• Control system approaches to system and network defense architectures and techniques
• Incident-response skills in a control system environment
• Governance models and resources for industrial cybersecurity professionals

Course participants need to have a basic understanding of networking and system administration, TCP/IP, networking design/architecture, vulnerability assessment, and risk methodologies. ICS410 covers many of the core areas of security and assumes a basic understanding of technology, networks, and security. For those who are brand new to the field and have no background knowledge, ICS310: ICS Cybersecurity Foundations™ would be the recommended starting point. While ICS310 is not a prerequisite, it provides introductory knowledge that will help maximize a student's experience with ICS410.

With your purchase of this ICS Security course, you’ll receive complimentary OnDemand access to ICS310: ICS Cybersecurity Foundations™. This course is a great way to reinforce key concepts or fill gaps in your ICS/OT security knowledge, whether you complete it in full or focus on what’s most relevant to you. Within 14 business days, you’ll receive a non-transferable access code via your SANS account email.

Important! Bring your own system configured according to these instructions.

A properly configured system is required to fully participate in this course. If you do not carefully read and follow these instructions, you will not be able to fully participate in hands-on exercises in your course. Therefore, please arrive with a system meeting all of the specified requirements.

Back up your system before class. Better yet, use a system without any sensitive/critical data. SANS is not responsible for your system or data.

MANDATORY ICS410 SYSTEM HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

• CPU: 64-bit Intel i5/i7 (8th generation or newer), or AMD equivalent. A x64 bit, 2.0+ GHz or newer processor is mandatory for this class.
• CRITICAL: Apple Silicon devices cannot perform the necessary virtualization and therefore cannot in any way be used for this course.
• BIOS settings must be set to enable virtualization technology, such as "Intel-VTx" or "AMD-V" extensions. Be absolutely certain you can access your BIOS if it is password protected, in case changes are necessary.
• 8GB of RAM or more is required.
• 70GB of free storage space or more is required.
• At least one available USB 3.0 Type-A port. A Type-C to Type-A adapter may be necessary for newer laptops. Some endpoint protection software prevents the use of USB devices, so test your system with a USB drive before class.
• Wireless networking (802.11 standard) is required. There is no wired Internet access in the classroom.

MANDATORY ICS410 HOST CONFIGURATION AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

• Your host operating system must be the latest version of Windows 10, Windows 11, or macOS 10.15.x or newer.
• Fully update your host operating system prior to the class to ensure you have the right drivers and patches installed.
• Linux hosts are not supported in the classroom due to their numerous variations. If you choose to use Linux as your host, you are solely responsible for configuring it to work with the course materials and/or VMs.
• Local Administrator Access is required. (Yes, this is absolutely required. Don't let your IT team tell you otherwise.) If your company will not permit this access for the duration of the course, then you should make arrangements to bring a different laptop.
• You should ensure that antivirus or endpoint protection software is disabled, fully removed, or that you have the administrative privileges to do so. Many of our courses require full administrative access to the operating system and these products can prevent you from accomplishing the labs.
• Any filtering of egress traffic may prevent accomplishing the labs in your course. Firewalls should be disabled or you must have the administrative privileges to disable it.
• Download and install VMware Workstation Pro 16.2.X+ or VMware Player 16.2.X+ (for Windows 10 hosts), VMware Workstation Pro 17.0.0+ or VMware Player 17.0.0+ (for Windows 11 hosts), or VMWare Fusion Pro 12.2+ or VMware Fusion Player 11.5+ (for macOS hosts) prior to class beginning. If you do not own a licensed copy of VMware Workstation Pro or VMware Fusion Pro, you can download a free 30-day trial copy from VMware. VMware will send you a time-limited serial number if you register for the trial at their website. Also note that VMware Workstation Player offers fewer features than VMware Workstation Pro. For those with Windows host systems, Workstation Pro is recommended for a more seamless student experience.
• On Windows hosts, VMware products might not coexist with the Hyper-V hypervisor. For the best experience, ensure VMware can boot a virtual machine. This may require disabling Hyper-V. Instructions for disabling Hyper-V, Device Guard, and Credential Guard are contained in the setup documentation that accompanies your course materials.
• Download and install 7-Zip (for Windows Hosts) or Keka (for macOS hosts). These tools are also included in your downloaded course materials.

Your course media is delivered via download. The media files for class can be large. Many are in the 40-50GB range, with some over 100GB. You need to allow plenty of time for the download to complete. Internet connections and speed vary greatly and are dependent on many different factors. Therefore, it is not possible to give an estimate of the length of time it will take to download your materials. Please start your course media downloads as soon as you get the link. You will need your course media immediately on the first day of class. Do not wait until the night before class to start downloading these files.

Your course materials include a "Setup Instructions" document that details important steps you must take before you travel to a live class event or start an online class. It may take 30 minutes or more to complete these instructions.

Your class uses an electronic workbook for its lab instructions. In this new environment, a second monitor and/or a tablet device can be useful for keeping class materials visible while you are working on your course's labs.

If you have additional questions about the laptop specifications, please contact customer service.

"This course provides students with the essentials for conducting cybersecurity work in industrial control system environments. After spending years working with industry, we believe there is a gap in the skill sets of industrial control system personnel, whether it be cybersecurity skills for engineers or engineering principles for cybersecurity experts. In addition, both information technology and operational technology roles have converged in today's industrial control system environments, so there is a greater need than ever for a common understanding between the various groups who support or rely on these systems. Students in ICS410 will learn the language, the underlying theory, and the basic tools for industrial control system security in settings across a wide range of industry sectors and applications."

- Justin Searle

"Conceptualizing safety within ICS/SCADA is easier to understand with the numerous examples Justin provides. His ability to visually show where the gotchas will appear gave me techniques to repair our SCADA network."

- Attilio Pramarini, RTD