The concepts of safety and security are quite well defined to those who speak English as a first language, or with sufficiency. They are distinct concepts and distinct terms:
Safe comes from the Latin word salvus, which means “whence whole” and indicates that something is not in danger of being harmed or broken up. We would often talk about people being safe from harm. Safety is strongly linked with integrity. An image search for safety" will return pictures of hard hats and boots.
Secure comes from the Latin word securus, meaning “free from care” and indicates more of a protection to enable something to be free to exist. We would often talk about assets being secure (although interestingly we might store something securely in a safe). An image search of security will return pictures of locks and CCTV cameras.
However, if we translate safety and security into other contemporary languages we often get the same word meaning both (in no particular order):
Welsh: Diogelwch
Spanish (Castilian): Seguridad
Basque: Segurtasun
German: Sicherheit
French: Sécurité
Swedish: Säkerhet
Italian: Sicurezza
Of course, this is not the case in every language (Arabic for example), and even those where safety and security are translated to the same word there may be other words which could be used to differentiate the two subtle meanings.
However, we highlight this to show that when we talk about cyber security it is often to easy to talk about the protection of things. Too little thought is sometimes given to the safety and integrity aspect of cyber security.
This is especially important in our domain of cyber security of industrial control systems (ICS) / operational technologies (OT), where a cyber threat to these systems can cross from the digital into the physical. Actual physical damage could be caused to machinery, property or even human life. We have seen cases of this before, and it provides us at Awen Collective drive to do what we do. We want to protect people and businesses from cyber attacks, when the manifest in just the digital world, or in both the digital and the physical.
Contact us today if you are owners/administrators of industrial control systems or operational technologies. We would like to discuss with you how to dissipate any fears you might have regarding cyber threats to your environment.