INDUSTRIAL CYBERSECURITY: PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF IT/OT CONVERGENCE

This thesis aims, first of all, to explain the Ethical Hacker figure, describing its role, actions and relevance in securing data and procedures of a company. The focus is set on Industrial Systems and the increasing convergence between Operational technology (OT) and Information technology (IT), as well as on the description of problems and opportunities this merging creates. The work also mentions Italian and European main legislative rules, regulations and standards that must be followed by companies operating in OT, in order not to incur penalties and to guarantee processes and assets security. Experience gained by the undersigned is then illustrated: it consists of several inspections carried out during the internship period at a customer's industrial sites, with which the methodologies, tools and activity's discovered results are highlighted.