CCI’s “4th Int’l Congress on Industrial Cybersecurity”, held this week in Buenos Aires (Argentina), has confirmed the growing interest, among the professional community, in the matter of operational technology (OT) cyber security. At the same time, it has shown a greater vendors’ maturity regarding their offering in this field.

“Air gaping networks isn’t the solution; they’d be connected, but with caution“, stated Patrick C. Miller, President Emeritus, EnergySec, during his brilliant talk, given on June, 2nd. Idea that was insistently repeated during the congress, as well as other proposals like converging IT and OT, enabling organizational change or improving collaboration among different players.

Delegates  -some one hundred and fifty, from almost one dozen countries-  have had the opportunity of knowing different experiences and viewpoints, both from industrial organizations, cyber security researchers and vendors. Particularly, during plenary sessions as well as during pre- and post-congress workshops, a series of interesting topics were discussed in depth: the industrial cyber security reality of several countries  -Argentina, Colombia, Paraguay, Spain and, even, the rest of the world-; the last innovations regarding open platforms for digital control; the application of reverse engineering techniques to industrial equipment; the specifics of smart grid, smart city or Industry 4.0 cyber security; and, finally, the convergence between cyber- and HSE-protection.

A real challenge for the upcoming international meeting of CCI to be held in October in Madrid (Spain)!