Hacker News Reader

SCADA systems often rely on time-deterministic routing of packets, which TCP/IP doesn't make easy. There are a number of issues with securing them, including the fact that unscheduled downtime can be catastrophic (ergo, no hotpatching without massive work).

There are some good posts on the SCADASEC mailing list. There are some lousy posts as well.

Culturally, SCADA system security is approximately where IT systems were in in 1995 with Windows 95.

View on HN

Second this, as per other comment I made as well. SCADA systems are generally unstable and very precious about how they are implemented, it can drive people to make a lot of concessions. Thankfully we run enough support staff to ensure physical site visits are possible, which eliminates the security and technical issues associated with trying to tie these things into a WAN.

*edit, inferring that instability can drive people to network these devices for support reasons.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com