Recently, several ICS end users in the Middle East and Asia have been exposed to attacks directly on the control systems through firewalls that have been misconfigured, or not configured correctly, for Modbus and OPC data. These attacks have caused weeks of rebuilding systems, with concomitant loss of production and loss of revenue. We have seen enough of this to validate the ISA99 "zones and conduits" model of ICS system architecture.
From
'Unfettered Blog'