Industrial Robots Gone Rogue: Staying Ahead of ICS Security Vulnerabilities

If you're following industrial cyber security trends you know that industrial networks, endpoints and control systems typically have inherent weaknesses that make them insecure and vulnerable to compromise through digital methods. With 5.6 million newly connected devices added per day in 2016 and an estimated 21 billion online by 2020, these current growth trends only increase the potential attack surface within industrial automation and process control environments. So, it shouldn't come as a big surprise to learn that the May 2017 report, Rogue Robots: Testing the Limits of an Industrial Robot's Security, tells us that industrial robots are insecure too, and for many of the same reasons. However, what might surprise industrial firms with robotic applications is how much cyber risk exists within their robotic ecosystem. This report was produced from research by students at Politecnico di Milano in Italy and researchers from Japanese, multi-national antivirus and security vendor Trend Micro.