(CS)2 AI Online: Ubiquitous OT-Cybersecurity Consequences in Thrill Rides (July 22nd)
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2026: 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM
What does a roller coaster have in common with a refinery? More than you'd think. This talk applies bowtie analysis - a proven process safety methodology - to theme park ride control systems, showing how OT cybersecurity and functional safety can be quantified together in a single framework.
Virtual
What does a roller coaster have in common with a refinery? More than you'd think. This talk applies bowtie analysis — a proven process safety methodology — to theme park ride control systems, showing how OT cybersecurity and functional safety can be quantified together in a single framework.
Theme park ride control systems occupy a rare and underappreciated position in the OT cybersecurity landscape: they are life-safety-critical and continuously networked. While the integrated system is unique to each installation, the components themselves are an integration of commercial IT and OT products, often managed by teams whose primary expertise is mechanical and electrical engineering, not cybersecurity. As cyber threats targeting industrial control systems grow more sophisticated, the theme park industry needs analytical frameworks that speak both languages: the language of functional safety and the language of cyber risk. Bowtie analysis does exactly that.
John will examine managing the risks in these ubiquitous systems using bowtie analysis, which is a visual risk methodology with deep roots in the process safety world, refineries, chemical plants, offshore platforms, where it has been used for decades to map threat and cause pathways to a top event, and consequence pathways from the top event to harm.
Hosted by Miami Cyber Security for Control Systems