Big data technologies are entering the world of ageing computer systems running critical infrastructures like energy, transport or water. These innovations promise to bring about rapid Internet connectivity, remote operations or predictive maintenance. As legacy critical infrastructures were traditionally disconnected from the Internet, the prospect of their modernisation prompts researchers to investigate how to ensure cyber security and how security intersects with traditional engineering requirements like safety, reliability or resilience.

Our recent research interviewed control system workers as well as other critical infrastructure experts. Just like the person in our artwork, control room workers are dedicated to the ‘old world’ priorities of safety and reliability, yet they are still figuring out how to align them with the ‘new world’ priorities of cyber security. A wave of novel regulations, risk management techniques and broadly – ways of thinking about critical infrastructures is shaping the upcoming generation of industrial computers powering our society.

Further reading:

• When the future meets the past: Can safety and cyber security coexist in modern critical infrastructures? - a research article by Dr Ola Michalec, Dr Sveta Milyaeva and Prof Awais Rashid
• Reconfiguring governance: How cyber security regulations are reconfiguring water governance - a research article by Dr Ola Michalec, Dr Sveta Milyaeva and Prof Awais Rashid
• Industry Responses to the European Directive on Security of Network and Information Systems (NIS): Understanding policy implementation practices across critical infrastructures -  a research article by Dr Ola Michalec,  Dr Dirk van der Linden, Dr Sveta Milyaeva and Prof Awais Rashid