Industrial control systems have undergone an evolution from being isolated systems to being part of a large, interconnected network. Companies are making the technological shift to allow more remote work operations on these industrial control systems. This gives them certain advantages, but it also has an important downside: it can increase the risk of a cyber incident if badly implemented.
The increased connectivity of industrial control systems makes them more exposed to potential cyberattacks. Therefore, it is important to keep the industrial network as isolated as possible from the enterprise network, especially from the public internet.
To explain this issue in detail, Toreon has created a whitepaper on remote operations.