On May 29, the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) hosted the 7th “Perspektiven mit Industrie 4.0” conference. The theme of this year’s conference was “Cyber Security”.

The presentations were varied and exciting, and the speakers managed to highlight both the risks of cybercrime in relation to Industry 4.0 and ways of dealing with it. For example, the presentation by Amerigo De Santis from BERNINA International AG offered an impressive retelling of a ransomware attack. Tobias Ospelt from the pentesting company Pentagrid talked about the Industry 4.0-specific vulnerabilities he encounters in his daily work. Valentin Zahnd from secuteer, on the other hand, took the opportunity to derive ways of dealing with these new risks from a historical perspective.

In addition to the interesting presentations, the conference also provided an opportunity to interact with other participants. The networking was valuable and a chance to exchange ideas with experts from various fields. Current threats, best practices and future challenges were discussed.

 An important part of the conference was a workshop entitled “Dealing with Cyber Attacks”, which was attended by all participants and led by sponsoring partner Siemens, where topics such as “Effective recovery of production operations after an attack” were discussed. Among other things, it became clear that the interface between I (Information Technology) and OT (Operational Technology) is critical to ensuring the security of our critical infrastructures in the future.