A security researcher is showing that it’s not hard to hold industrial control systems for ransom. He’s experimented with a simulated water treatment system based on actual programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and documented how these can be hacked.
David Formby, a PhD student at Georgia Institute of Technology, conducted his experiment to warn the industry about the danger of poorly-secured PLCs. These small dedicated computers can be used to control important factory processes or utilities, but are sometimes connected to the internet.
