Learn to Safeguard Critical Industrial Targets at Black Hat USA

Cybersecurity experts will share their latest insights and strategies for protecting industrial sites and equipment, from electric motors to satellites.


Some of the most grievous cybersecurity breaches happen at industrial facilities responsible for providing critical services like power, so it pays to stay on top of what's happening in the field of industrial security. Black Hat USA offers an entire track of Smart Grid and Industrial Security Briefings that will help you do just that. As you prepare to attend the event next week in Las Vegas be sure not to overlook some of the most promising industrial cybersecurity Briefings.

Sensor and Process Fingerprinting in Industrial Control Systems will equip you with a full understanding of the most common cyber and cyber-physical attack vectors to critical infrastructure. You'll learn practical detection and defense strategies for both cyber and physical attacks on industrial targets and enjoy full video walkthroughs of attacks and defenses in a state-of-the-art water treatment testbed.

Attacking Electric Motors for Fun and Profit is another great Briefing to check out because it promises a useful breakdown of electric motor vulnerabilities and defense strategies, based on a wide analysis of electric motors used in everything from cars to industrial robots to phones. It's rare to see this level of cybersecurity analysis for electric motors, so expect to walk away with a better understanding of how to compromise motors using techniques like pin-control attacks disrupting PWM, DOS or injection network attacks, sensor attacks, and exploiting the lack of security controls of software libraries on electric motor controllers.

For a broader perspective on industrial system cybersecurity make time for Cybersecurity Risk Assessment for Safety-Critical Systems, a Briefing from Honeywell on the vulnerabilities of truly critical infrastructure. Much of this Briefing is focused on space, so you can expect to learn all about the weak points in the satellite systems and networks that support agriculture, transportation, and the military. Plus, you'll learn about a new technique for assessing security risks for safety-critical systems like space systems and enjoy a discussion on what the next steps should be in advancing cybersecurity for space systems.


Black Hat USA returns to the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas August 3-8, 2019. For more information on what's happening at the event and how to register, check out the Black Hat website.

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