Alan Weissberger of the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) Techblog felt the ongoing culture and education gaps been network security and engineering needed to be highlighted as it is keeping critical infrastructures from being cyber-secured. While IT and OT network security are essential, securing control systems presents fundamentally different challenges. Engineering devices, particularly field and process sensor equipment, typically lack built-in cybersecurity features such as authentication, encryption, cyber forensics and logging, and are not supported by process sensor cybersecurity-trained personnel. As a result, traditional network-centric approaches are insufficient for ensuring safe and reliable control system operations. To address these gaps in understanding Alan and I collaborated on an IEEE ComSoc Techblog post titled “Key Differences Between Network Cybersecurity and Control System Cybersecurity & Why It Matters,” published May 1, 2026. The Techblog post emphasizes that the culture gap is not simply the commonly discussed IT/OT convergence issue. Rather, it stems from a lack of understanding within network cybersecurity communities of the requirements for securing control systems against both malicious and unintentional electronic communication issues, including, but not limited to, Ethernet-based threats.
jue., may 14
IEEE Communication Society Techblog: Why the differences between network and control systems cybersecurity matter
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