With TSA’s recent announcement on revising cybersecurity requirements for pipeline owners and operators, we wanted to introduce Vicki Knott, CEO, Co-Founder and pioneer of robotic industrial process automation (RIPA™), CruxOCM.
Vicki believes that heavy industry is at its most vulnerable state, and if companies act now to prioritise and invest in their cybersecurity departments instead of relying on their IT department, they’d be less worrisome. An expert in operational control systems, Vicki comments:
“Heavy industry is at its most vulnerable state. There is an uptick in cybercrime causing the oil and gas industry to panic when leaders should be preparing. Up until recently the industry has been taking traditional IT practices and applying them to 2022 problems, which just will not cut it. If a breach were to happen in the control system, it would be catastrophic on both a safety and an environmental level. Companies need redundant safety limits which must belong to an internal complex cybersecurity unit. I commend CISA for taking the necessary measures to properly prepare, and protect critical pipelines from cyber threats. This is exactly the path we should be on, and know the Cybersecurity Implementation Plan will be taken very seriously in our industry”