| CHEMICAL INDUSTRY JOURNAL |
| cyber security |
Cyber Security should not be ignored in the Chemical Industry Effects of the pandemic and Brexit are further driving digitalisation often without the much-needed protection against cyber attacks. Ian Elsby, Siemens Digital Industries Head of Chemical Industry explains.
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t’s been over 18 months since I wrote on the topic ‘Why Cyber Attack Threats should not hinder digitalisation in the Chemical Industry’ in the Chemical Industry Journal. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since. We as a nation are separated from the EU – Brexit is the new reality; and the world is still reeling and combating one of the biggest pandemics of our technologically advanced world. Covid-19 has triggered collaboration from not just the pharmaceutical and chemical sectors but from the entire manufacturing industry to keep those necessities produced, be it PPE or sanitisers. As we progress into making our factories smart, digitalised, and most importantly sustainable to meet our net zero goals for a better future, one of the over looming topics is cyber security. Having to face unknown viruses in real life we also have to be prepared to face those viruses and cyber attacks that can bring our factories and plants to a halt. According to figures highlighted in the Chemistry Council’s website, the chemical and pharmaceutical industry adds £18 billion of value to the UK economy every year from total annual turnover of £50 billion.1 It also states that ‘the products and technologies of the Chemical industry are essential parts of medicines,
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food & drink, telecommunications, energy-saving, I.T, clothing and much more’. These constitute our basic essentials in the time of crises and need top notch protection both to the physical as well as technology assets that run our plants. Cyber threats make us vulnerable, increasing our risks to failure of plants and even shutdowns. These vulnerabilities are termed as viruses, malware, ransomware and hackings. Rogue organisations can go as far as employing hackers to infect the assets and software with either a worm or ransomware. It is easy to obtain intelligence on any plant and identify weaknesses in any system, and if you have a legacy plant with older Windows operating systems that are not patched or updated, the hackers find routes to break into the network. Most chemical companies continue to resort to air gap, which effectively means they remove the ability of a process system to connect to the internet, which solves part of the problem. However, this is not a long-term solution and may only work to keep the problem away temporarily. The new problems that have further impacted the chemicals industry and sectors attached to it is Covid-19, where on one side there has been an impetus
