Security issues are second only to cost concerns when energy generators consider the risks related to implementing connected technology at their power plants, according to a February 15 poll of the audience at POWER’s Connected Plant Conference.

However, continued improvements in available cybersecurity systems are quickly reducing those risks, Stan Schneider, CEO of Real-Time Innovations, told the audience in his keynote address.

“Security is a huge problem, everybody knows,” he said. “I think it’s getting better because security is a layer game.”

Using the most common security technology, such as air gap and firewalls, is not sufficient, but new technologies have the potential to greatly reduce the threat of a cybersecurity attack, according to Schneider. “If you’re dependent on fire walls, realize an insider attack easily breaches a fire wall protection. There’s just so many things that don’t work that people are dependent on for various reasons, but the new technologies [where] you can layer in different levels of security, are definitely making it better,” he said.…

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