Industrial process management uses hardware and software known as operational technology or OT. It is susceptible to cyberattacks that could harm real-world physical systems, disrupt operations, and cause financial loss.
While the C-suite is taking OT security more seriously, more must be done to protect it from relentless attacks. This article offers essential strategies to do so.
Develop a Security Strategy
Cyber threats are more sophisticated than ever before, and they can put critical infrastructure at risk. This includes everything from water, power, and natural gas systems to manufacturing facilities and financial services.
As attacks become more complex and sophisticated, businesses need to take action. A strategy can help you protect and minimize the impact of securing operational technology from cyberattacks.
Developing a security strategy involves several factors, including understanding your business’s risk profile and current vulnerability assessments. It also includes creating goals and implementing policies that will help you reduce your cybersecurity risks.
Many organizations develop security strategies with a three- to five-year vision, but reviewing and updating them frequently is essential as the threat landscape changes.
An effective security strategy comprises four phases: Assessment, Planning, Implementation, and Monitoring. During the assessment phase, your organization will identify its strengths and weaknesses to understand the security environment.
During the planning phase, you will develop goals to improve your company’s cybersecurity posture, and during implementation, your team will carry out tasks to achieve those objectives. Finally, you will monitor your progress to ensure your plans work.
An effective cybersecurity strategy shows your leadership, customers, and employees that you’re taking the necessary steps to protect data. It will also help reduce risk exposure and keep your business running smoothly.
Invest in a Firewall
Firewalls are an essential tool for securing operational technology systems. They can block malicious software programs from infiltrating networks and stealing information or data. They can also prevent criminals from causing damage or disruption to physical systems.
Malware threats are constantly changing, so firewalls need to be updated and patched regularly. They should include malware detection, an IPS (intrusion prevention system), and URL filtering. It is also helpful to use cloud-native options that offer malware protection, a web security gateway, and other protective tools designed for hybrid cloud environments.
The threat landscape is dangerous, and public utilities must be prepared for cyberattacks that could impact critical infrastructure, cause outages, or lead to costly data breaches. To do this, they must invest in a cybersecurity plan that includes technical controls like firewalls and privileged access management, administrative controls such as policies, procedures, and training, and physical security measures such as access control and alarm systems.
Investing in vulnerability assessment tools and penetration testing can help identify security weaknesses before attackers find them. Vulnerability assessment tools scan hardware and software for known vulnerabilities, while penetration testing simulates real-world attacks to discover misconfigurations, customer code vulnerabilities, and other issues that attackers could exploit. In addition, a well-established incident response plan must be implemented and practiced to ensure a quick and effective response to a breach.
Enforce Access Control
Access control is the process of ensuring that only authorized individuals can gain access to data, systems, or resources. It begins with authenticating a person’s or device’s identity and then empowers what actions they can take, such as reading, writing, or downloading data. Access control can be implemented as either discretionary or mandatory.
The system owner can control who has access to their resources or data through discretionary access control, or DAC. In contrast, mandatory access control (MAC) gives a central authority the power to regulate access to information. This model is often used in government and military environments.
Attacks on IT systems result in data loss and communication disruption. However, attacks on operational technology (OT) can have a more physical impact. They can cause equipment to malfunction and potentially damage the real-world systems they run on, resulting in disruptions, financial losses, and potential threats to public safety.
Organizations must adopt comprehensive security solutions to protect OT from cyberattacks that prevent malicious software and other threats from reaching the network through BYOD, unmanaged devices, or unsecured web-based applications.
Citrix, secure access solutions, are designed to protect OT by enabling zero-trust network access for IT-sanctioned apps. They evaluate a person’s risk profile, locations, device posture, and user roles to assess their eligibility to connect to enterprise apps continuously.
Invest in Monitoring
As more OT equipment is connected to the internet, it creates a bigger attack surface for hackers. Couple that with the difficulty of protecting industrial equipment safety regulations prohibiting any modifications to the machinery and IT-related infrastructure, and it becomes challenging to achieve the dual goals of operational uptime and security.
Having robust monitoring systems in place can help protect OT from cyberattacks. For example, monitoring can detect unusual network activity and highlight connections that should be reviewed. This may indicate a compromised system or early warning indications of ransomware attempts. It can also identify environmental issues that could lead to equipment failure, such as the overheating of servers due to cooling system malfunction. Salas O’Brien can design redundant power systems that can maintain server availability and reduce the risk of downtime.
Monitoring is often less valued or resourced than evaluation. Elevating the monitoring function requires leadership commitment and culture change. This can be accomplished by demonstrating the benefits of good monitoring practices, finding organizational champions to promote best practices, and advocating for using monitoring data in decision-making. In addition, monitoring systems must be linked with evaluation systems to synthesize and aggregate results for reporting purposes. This can require additional effort and cost, but the payoff is well worth it.
