The built environment – buildings, in a word – costs money, to own and run. Hence pressure to run them efficiently, and in a green manner; businesses are becoming reliant on industrial control systems, which however comes with risks.
The official CPNI (Centre for Protection of National Infrastructure) and the Institute for Engineering and Technology (IET) have produced a paper ‘Resilience and Cyber Security of Technology in the built environment’ which examines the different sources of threats across the building life cycle from initial concept through to decommissioning.
Hugh Boyes at Stevenage-based IET, the document author, said: “Our society is increasingly moving towards the creation of intelligent or smart buildings for economic and environmental reasons. In an intelligent building a range of systems will be integrated to improve the efficiency of the building’s operations, particularly its utility consumption, and to improve the occupants’ enjoyment of the accommodation.
“From a resilience perspective the additional complexity increases the risk of systems failure which could simply cause inconvenience or in some circumstances lead to serious injury or loss of life. In terms of cyber-security there is increased risk of corruption or hackers interfering with the safe and secure operation and occupancy of the building. This technical briefing examines the different sources of threats across the building life-cycle from initial concept through to decommissioning. It considers potential threat agents that could cause or contribute to a cyber-security incident and identifies some of the measures that may be appropriate to reduce the risks.”
The briefing can be downloaded at: www.theiet.org/cyber-buildings-pr or the CPNI website – http://www.cpni.gov.uk
