Open, but vulnerable

The world of open technology is an excellent environment. There are so many things a manufacturer can do to take advantage of all the new tools. Throw in the Internet and you have a winning combination that will allow a manufacture to reap productivity dividends for years to come.
There is a downside, however.
This news hit the street this week: U.S. Central Intelligence Agency senior analyst Tom Donahue said, "We have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands. We suspect, but cannot confirm, that some of these attackers had the benefit of inside knowledge. We have information that cyber attacks have been used to disrupt power equipment in several regions outside the United States. In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet."
He discussed this issue before a gathering of 300 U.S., UK, Swedish, and Dutch government officials and engineers and security managers from electric, water, oil & gas and other critical industry asset owners from all across North America.
Kudos to the CIA for making this information public. It would have been easy to hide this information, but instead they made the correct decision to go public.
If manufacturers don’t already, they had better get a security system in place.
Talk to me.