Last night I received a couple of e-mails from a very well known individual in the SCADA security industry with an attachment containing the W32.Beagle.AZ virus. My Norton anti-virus deleted it before I even had a chance to do the wrong thing. Hopefully everyone else who received it was also protected.

This is a great example of the virus problem. If my anti-virus had not been up to date, I would have likely opened the file. I know the person, and I’m always very interested in what the person has to say. If this was a brand new virus, my anti-virus may not identify and delete the e-mail.

Old lessons that are worth repeating:

- Keep e-mail off of SCADA devices and networks. Provide a separate enterprise PC for SCADA users to access e-mail, the web and corporate resources.

- Have an automated and managed anti-virus solution that insures your anti-virus systems are running the current virus definitions.

I’m attending a demonstration on Cisco’s NAC that helps address the virus problem later today.