A look at the key steps to guard building energy management systems against ‘cyber-attack’.
With a new White Paper from QinetiQ – the UK’s largest research and technology organisation – warning that building energy management systems (BEMS) are ‘particularly vulnerable to cyber-attack’ (see panel, page 56), Graeme Rees, marketing director at Trend Control Systems, one of the leading manufacturers of such equipment, outlines some of the key steps to take to ensure that a BEMS system is adequately protected against ‘hackers’ intent on compromising security and potentially causing considerable disruption to both a building and its occupants.
IT security breaches are making the news headlines on an almost daily basis, with a number of high profile attacks having taken place in 2015. If the experts are to be believed, this current level of activity is just the tip of the iceberg, and, to highlight the scale of the issue, the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies claimed that hackers stole roughly 81.5 million records worldwide in 2014, while The World Economic Forum has estimated a US$3 tn cost to the global economy if the problem is not taken seriously.
QinetiQ’s research last year suggests that ‘BEMS systems create a route for serious damage and disruption to be caused to most major companies and organisations’. Among facilities that could suffer the greatest disruption, its White Paper, Building management systems – the cyber blind spot, suggests, are airports, stadiums, hospitals, and government departments.
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