Architecting Threat Responses

Hack the Plant

I’m joined by David Patrick Emmerich, the Principal Cyber-Physical Range Architect at the University of Illinois, for this episode of Hack the Plant.

We’re here today to talk about RADICS, a DARPA project. RADICS stands for Rapid Attack Detection, Isolation and Characterization Systems. We discuss David’s role in building automated data collection and set up simulations and testing, and how the process of doing vulnerability discovery for physical assets helps asset owners.

“ ‘These are ways that an attacker could get around it.’ ‘These are where your blind spots might be’ … We help them understand that so that they can better improve the security of their systems. Or go back to their boards or their management and say ‘these are the tools we need’ or ‘this is the equipment we need and this is why we need it to better improve our security posture.’ Their systems are already critical, but as they become even more critical.”

We delve into challenges of securing operational technology (OT) for asset owners, different kinds of threats they face, and more technical projects that RADICS ignited.

Join us for an interesting - if technical - discussion to learn more about how physical systems interact with data to support real-time threat response.