I had the pleasure of participating in the two-day Security Symposium at the ISA Expo 2003. I presented on taking advantage of the security standards in Windows such as IPSec, strong authentication, single sign-on, and Kerberos. Most HMI and many of the newer server systems run on Windows. Our approach is to look to the security features in the systems whenever they are available. Microsoft, for all their failings, has done a good job of integrating security standards into their solutions beginning with Windows 2000.

In the afternoon, I chaired a session on What’s New on the International Scene. The session had the Executive Director from CIDX, a representative from NISCC in the UK, and some industry experts.

The entire symposium was very well attended, and ISA is planning on continuing the symposium in future events. Like many new security efforts, a lot of the talks centered on awareness of the issues. In the future, we will need to push for practical solutions and best practice presentations at the industry events.