Empowered To Protect
Because mandates from government often fall short of fulfilling their intention, key stakeholders in various industries are often empowered to develop best practices and procedures to effectively self-regulate.
It is happening in the area of cyber security for the nation’s critical infrastructure. The Process Control Systems Forum (PCSF) — funded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — provides a collaborative environment for private industries to come together with government officials, vendors and academics to address the critical issues of protecting our nation’s control systems, including the SCADA systems (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) that operate utility companies. In the last year, the PCSF has assembled an organization serving the private sector and government agencies managing critical control systems throughout the United States and abroad.
Currently, more than 225 organizations participate in the PCSF, which is managed and operated by Falls Church, Va.-based Mitretek Systems, a non-profit company offering technical support to government agencies.
“The PCSF provides an opportunity for representatives from various industries, government and academia to come together and address the security of vital control systems that operate critical infrastructures such as chemical, water, gas, oil, electric and transportation,” says Michael Torppey, technical manager for the PCSF. “This umbrella approach brings together information on best practices and lessons learned in control systems security to one place, allowing for interactive discussions that help our members quickly identify solutions for common cross-sector control system security issues.”
The mission statement of the PCSF is to “accelerate the design, development and deployment of more secure control and legacy systems,” and the group uses a number of meetings, interest groups and working groups to help its members develop and adopt common architectures, protocols and practices to do just that. Current participants of the PCSF include international stakeholders from government, academia, industry users, owner/operators, systems integrators and the vendor community.
In order to establish initial governance for the forum, the PCSF created an Interim Government Board (IGB), which today provides the group with guidance on issues of strategy, management, legal matters, process and conflict resolution. Each sector of the community is represented on the IGB to ensure leadership balance.
Current board members include executives from CenterPoint Energy, Eastman Chemicals, the Gas Technology Institute, Santa Clara Valley Water District, the Department of Energy and NIST, among others.
“We will soon be dropping the term ‘interim’ from our governing board label,” Torppey says. “At our 2006 spring meeting, our participants will have the opportunity to select representatives through a voting process.”
The PCSF is holding its annual 2006 Spring Meeting on June 6-7 at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines Hotel in La Jolla, Calif. The purpose of the meeting is to provide an inclusive venue for collaboration among the control system sectors to improve efficiency and accelerate solutions that can be applied broadly or used as a core for unique applications. The meeting will host keynotes from industry experts such as Paul Dorey of BP plc; William Crowell, former NSA Deputy Director; and Peg Grayson, president of AEP Government Solutions Group and member of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council.
The meeting will also include a case study and panel session on “First SCADA Vulnerability Disclosure” and a panel on “The Challenges of Managing Large-Scale Cyber Security.”
“Our theme this year is a ‘call to action’ and the time is now to enhance the security and resilience of our critical infrastructure,” Torppey adds. “We are providing the venue for our participants to do just that. The PCSF will dedicate a full day to working and interest group workshops to ensure we come out of this meeting with results that our stakeholders can use to move forward.”
For more information, visit www.pcsforum.org/events/2006/spring/index.php.
