Eric Byres, one of the big names in SCADA security, has reportedly decided to leave the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) and join Wurldtech Analytics, bringing most of his research team and many of the projects with him.
BCIT went from a non-player to one of the go-to educational research institutions in SCADA security under Eric's leadership. They developed a PLC testing tool named Achilles, a field firewall, recommended practice papers and were a source of incident statistics. It was always interesting to see what they were up to.
The Achilles product is one of Eric's passions, and it will be interesting to see what Wurldtech can do with this product. There definitely is a need for testing and certification of field devices, but this is a very new and challenging market. One of the biggest challenges is the size. While it is a critical market, it is not a large market as compared to other markets with specialized needs such as finance, healthcare, etc. I think this is one of the reasons the major security vendors have not developed products specifically for control systems. Still, I wouldn't bet against Eric and his team.
For more on about control system security, go to SCADA Security Blog.
