Secure Architecture for Industrial Control Systems

Industrial Control Systems (ICS) have migrated from stand-alone isolated systems to interconnected systems that leverage existing communication platforms and protocols to increase productivity, reduce operational costs and further improve an organization's support model. ICS are responsible for a vast amount of critical processes necessitating organizations to adequately secure their infrastructure. Creating strong boundaries between business and process control networks can reduce the number of vulnerabilities and attack pathways that an intruder may exploit to gain unauthorized access into these critical systems.This paper provides guidance to those organizations that must secure their ICS systems and networks through a defense-in-depth approach to security, achieved through the identification of key security patterns and controls that apply to critical information security domains. The goal is a visual explanation that allows stakeholders to understand how to reduce information risk while preserving the confidentiality, integrity and availability of critical infrastructure resources in the industrial control environment.