To the people who keep goods moving.
Illustrative scenario
2:17 a.m.
A camera in the loading yard of a distribution center does something new. It has watched the same patch of asphalt for six years. Tonight it starts talking to a stranger on the internet.
That camera shares a network with the gate readers, the dock doors, and the system that tells forty trucks where to go at 6 a.m.
The person on call has one question to answer before sunrise. Can we cut this camera off without stopping the trucks?
Many companies can't answer it. Their people are smart. They just never got a map. Often, nobody knows what that camera can reach, who owns it, or what breaks if you pull the plug.
This book is for the people who keep goods moving.
Warehouses, distribution centers, and plants are now networks of connected physical systems. Security often sees only part of that environment, while operations depends on all of it working.
You'll meet four companies that lost weeks of business when their systems went dark: a grocery distributor, a retailer, a carmaker, and a medical supplier. None of these attacks is known to have started with a camera. They're in this book because of what happened next. The systems stopped. Then the trucks stopped. The shelves emptied. And the money walked out the door.
Then I'll show you how to find the quiet devices in your own operation, decide which ones matter, and shut down an attack without shutting down the shift.
One promise before we start. I'll always tell you what kind of evidence you're reading. You'll see three labels. Observed means we saw it ourselves in a NetOps IQ engagement, with the customer's name removed. A small number after a sentence means independent evidence, and the source is in the notes at the back. Illustrative means an example built to show how something works, like the camera above.
Let's go find your blind spots.
Eldad Matityahu Founder and CEO, NetOps IQ