Cybersecurity awareness has never been higher, but how can it be approached in a cost-effective manner in 2023? Building automation in HVAC has quickly become an IT profession, requiring technicians to work on things that previously would require some sort of network engineer to manage. Many technicians were not formally trained in how to do the things they do, but they’re curious learners, thinkers, and observers. With that in mind, here are some simple thoughts on how to approach network security from a realistic standpoint. In no way is this an exhaustive list of to-dos but rather an idea map to get engineers thinking about simple things they might have missed while trying to overcomplicate the inevitable.
Ockham’s Razor is a famous theory created by William Ockham who studied logic in the 14th century. The rough translation of his ideas were: “More things should not be used than necessary,” or, in layman’s terms, “keep it simple, stupid.” In cybersecurity, firms can dig as deep as they want, depending on their budgets, creating endlessly complicated ways of securing systems to keep the intruders out, but have administrators taken the time to assume hackers won’t win? Of course, all precautions should be taken, but the simplest way to think about network security is to assume it’s already been hacked.