Critical infrastructures and industrial organizations aggressively move towards integrating elements of modern Information Technology (IT) into their monolithic Operational Technology (OT) architectures. Yet, as OT systems progressively become more and more interconnected, they silently have turned into alluring targets for diverse groups of adversaries. Meanwhile, the inherent complexity of these systems, along with their advanced-in-age nature, prevents defenders from fully applying contemporary security controls in a timely manner. Forsooth, the combination of these hindering factors has led to some of the most severe cybersecurity incidents of the past years. This work contributes a full-fledged and upto-date survey of the most prominent threats and attacks against Industrial Control Systems and critical infrastructures, along with the communication protocols and devices adopted in these environments. Our study highlights that threats against critical infrastructure follow an upward spiral due to the mushrooming of commodity tools and techniques that can facilitate either the early or late stages of attacks. Furthermore, our survey exposes that existing vulnerabilities in the design and implementation of several of the OTspecific network protocols and devices may easily grant adversaries the ability to decisively impact physical processes. We provide a categorization of such threats and the corresponding vulnerabilities based on various criteria. As far as we are aware, this is the first time an exhaustive and detailed survey of this kind is attempted.

The incorporation of FIM + FAM data in discharge summaries is worthwhile but the utility of this practice is still to be established.

Securing critical digital assets in an ever-changing threat landscape requires more than a dedicated team of cybersecurity professionals. Traditional static defense mechanisms like airgaps and reliance on obscure protocols and access mechanisms may not be sufficient for in-depth defense in an always-connected, information-rich cyber environment. Though technical solutions exist to protect availability, integrity and confidentiality of industrial control systems, these solutions typically secure external system boundaries and not the underlying digital systems themselves. Training engineering personnel in cybersecurity or training information technology specialists in engineering is expensive and often ineffective at addressing systemic vulnerabilities in large and complex digital systems. ENGINEERING LIFE CYCLE AND POST-BUILT DEFINITIONSCyber-informed engineering (CIE) can be used across the entire life cycle from conceptual design to decommissioning (using cyber and engineering controls) on non-digital and digital systems. The life-cycle phases are based on the IEEE 1220-2005 standard. C-1. CONCEPTUAL DESIGN PHASEConceptual design is the first step of any new engineering design. After the find for need, the idea is studied, evaluated, and budgeted to determine if the need is real. It is during this phase that provides the understanding of how the required systems will work, and the how behaviors and performance can be understood. C-2. REQUIREMENTS/SCHEMATIC PHASEThe requirements/schematic phase is when the development team develops the final product requirements. Information, such as technical and functional requirements and specifications are defined. C-3. DESIGN DEVELOPMENT PHASEThe design development phase is when the conceptual design ideas and the requirements information turn into documents such as blueprints where the required systems are described in architectural and engineering drawings and if needed, construction documents. C-4. COMPUTER SIMULATION PHASEA computer model of the proposed system may be developed and examined to ensure that all system requirements have been accurately determined.

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This research has demonstrated conflicting findings related to how environmental factors may affect the spread of tuberculosis (TB).A better understanding of this may have implications for health planning given the changing world climate. This study examines environmental factors, specifically elevation and temperature, demographic and income covariates and their association with TB incidence within the Appalachian region. County-wide TB incidence data were collected from the thirteen states within the Appalachian region for the most recent year available, 2017 or 2018, along with data from the American Community Survey for the corresponding year. A correlation analysis was performed followed by multiple negative binomial regression models to find models with the best fit. The analyses identified clusters of incident TB cases distributed throughout the Appalachian region. Hot spots (that is, highly positively autocorrelated geographic locations) utilizing Getis-Ord Gi* were found within the Southern portion of the Appalachian region while clusters utilizing Anselin local Moran's I were more spread throughout the region. Temperature was found to be significantly associated with TB incidence in all models, but ethnic distribution explained some of the variation. Future research could benefit from replicating this study with longitudinal data to assess how temperature changes over time affect TB incidence.