Cyber security: More critical than ever for big miners
The mining sector has come under increasing pressure over the past few years. Falling commodity prices, increased global competition and rising energy costs have all made big mining’s value proposition much more complicated than it was a decade ago, as miners dig deeper and deeper to extract what they can out of existing sites.
Like any sector of today’s globalised economy, mining has also become more automated to improve the efficiency of its production processes, reduce costs and increase output.
The last line of defence to meet the security challenges posed by today’s threat landscape.
Mining continues to undergo a major digital transformation in two critical areas: process and software automation - Information Technology (IT) and applying robotic technology to vehicles, equipment and transportation - Operational Technology (OT). This process has involved the adoption of solutions designed to streamline operations.
The adoption of these solutions has, however, also resulted in islands of automation between equipment and IT systems where there is no unity in the control room, especially on large mines that have up to four major operating areas running their own machines.
Additionally, many of the Industrial Control Systems (ICS) across the sector were developed decades ago and are often ill-equipped for integration with the emerging technologies. This has conspired to make security across platforms and networks more complex, and more critical, than ever before.
The huge reliance on natural resources in developing countries such as China and India, with their voracious appetite for raw materials, coupled with the greater number of players on the scene and the competition that has brought with it, mean miners are now prime targets for cyber attacks, and they will all be disruptive in some way, regardless of whether they are large or small.