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CompTIA Security+ 3.1
TechKnowSurge Catalog Interactives One ICS, or Several Systems?
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One ICS, or Several Systems?

One control system, or several? Sort each card as one industrial control system or several systems that make up operational technology. Land five in a row.

⚑ Complete this interactive to capture a CTF flag worth 5 points.

About this interactive

Operational technology (OT) is the umbrella: all the technology that supports an organization's operations. An industrial control system (ICS) is the hardware, software and networking used to control, monitor and automate industrial processes. An organization may run one ICS for its HVAC, one for a factory line, one for access control, and others besides. Together, they make up its OT. SCADA, distributed control systems (DCS) and PLC-based systems are kinds of ICS. One ICS can be large. NIST SP 800-82 describes a single SCADA system supervising a whole pipeline or water network, and a single DCS running a whole refinery. Size does not make it OT; it is still one system. To sort a card, count the separate systems it describes. One system, however much it runs, is an ICS. Two or more separate systems are part of the organization's OT.

What you'll learn

Aligned to

CompTIA Security+
3.1 Compare and contrast security implications of different architecture models.

Key terms

Operational Technology
OT
The hardware and software that monitor and control physical equipment, processes and infrastructure, such as plant machinery, pipelines and the power grid, and that need security approaches different from those used for office IT.
Industrial Control System
ICS
A broad category of the computers, networks and field devices that run production lines and critical infrastructure, SCADA and PLCs among them; securing them means protecting physical processes that can tolerate very little downtime.
Distributed Control System
DCS
A plant-wide architecture for continuous industrial processes such as refining, chemicals or power generation, in which many local units each run one part of the process under one shared operator view; securing it is critical to operational technology safety.
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
SCADA
An architecture in which a central server and its software gather readings from sensors and field units across a plant, pipeline or region and send commands back to them, used in critical infrastructure, where a security failure can damage physical equipment.

Topics

Interactive Streak Sort

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