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Couldn't the pipeline have it's own network connected to a monitoring station. At the station employees could access the pipeline network but never connect it to the network from which they could communicate with the people who would be dispatched to make repairs or adjustments?

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Sounds looks a solved problem, but it isn’t. The electrical grid isolates SCADA networks from the internet, so substations are interconnected via dedicated networks. But then at the command centers you have the entire monitoring and control systems with on site operators. Then, inevitably you will have some employees with vpn access, and now you have 2 vectors: remote admins getting hacked and local admins plugging in external devices. You’d think it’s easy to get rid of vpns, but things like the pandemic brought them all back to full force.

Is this even safe enough, though? They had one of those in the Iranian uranium enrichment facilities, and it still didn't work out for them.

I remember they got past the Iranian air gap using a USB stick. It’s a mistake to think air gaps are safe but they are certainly better than having your network open to the internet.

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