The problem being faced is really not so different from the age old advertising problem of reaching the right audience with the right message, at the right time. Having developed security awareness programs based upon advertising and marketing models in the past, I suggest the following:
Dunlap Interviewed About Grid Hack
Brandon Dunlap, Brightfly’s Managing Director of Research, was quoted in eWeek’s “GridGate” article series on security issues within the US electric grid today. Drawing upon his experience in the utility sector, he provided advice to his friends and colleagues still working within it.
“To Dunlap, energy companies need to look at three key areas to improve their overall security. The first involves more sharing of ideas between plant operations and IT or information security. Another is tighter integration between physical security, information security, IT, plant operations and other groups as more technology is pushed down to the meter level. Finally, he said, companies need to do more than merely meet the minimum regulatory requirements that do exist.”
These barriers to efficient and effective operations are not new to any one working in this field, regardless of vertical and are key points that Brightfly has promoted for a long time.
In a sort of “call to arms”, Dunlap encouraged utilities to strive for more open dialogue and information sharing, not only with one another, but also with vendors.
“Reach out to your peers in other companies, share ideas. Push your vendors to incorporate security into their control systems, band together for a stronger voice if you can. I have sat in on a lot of conference calls with various utilities and there seems to be a certain air of defensiveness among many of the members. They seem reluctant to share beyond a certain point. We need more collaboration.”
This aggregated “voice of the customer” is growing louder and we have been fortunate to work with some vendor companies leading the charge to integrate security elements into their control system technologies. Unfortunately, too often the necessary updates to maintain the security solutions outpaces the revision cycles of the underlying control systems, creating a gap in supportability for the overall system. By working as a coherent team, utilities are more likely to get the necessary security “baked into” their control systems. But we’ll have to wait until the next buying cycle for such things to find out if the message has truely taken hold.
Analysis and Commentary, Funding
LogRhythm Takes Down $3million B Round
Boulder, CO.based LogRhythm Inc. , a provider of solutions in the highly competitive log management/log analysis space, has added over $3.1 million to their warchest in their second round. As part of the deal, Joe Zell of Grotech Ventures joined the board alongside members from past investors Access Venture Partners and High Country Ventures “Colorado Fund”. Both investors participated in LogRhythm’s previous $3.25 million A round in Q4 of 2007.
This latest infusion shows that while many markets have cooled off, security investing remains active, a good sign for the profession and the state of the market.
© 2009 Brightfly, Inc.
Powered by You, the Community.