This Thanksgiving, Be Thankful for OT Security | SCADAfence

Thanksgiving – when families get together and express gratitude for everything they have, accompanied by good food and hopefully great football. For most families and network security teams who just feel like family, this is a great time for looking back and evaluating the past year and giving thanks for how far we’ve come. 

Here at SCADAfence, we are grateful for all the efforts and innovation contributed  by our amazingly talented team and the collective OT security community. 

From our increasing understanding of methods used by threat attackers to the US Government emphasizing the security risks that relate to OT environments, 2022 is a clear example that OT security is headed in the right direction and gaining larger mind-share from board members & C-level executives worldwide. 

As we look at last year and move forward, here are the 5 reasons why we are thankful for OT security. 

1. The Ongoing IT-OT Convergence

Just like on Thanksgiving, some family members might not see eye to eye at first but by the end of the night, everyone is happy and in agreement. This yearly experience is very relatable for security experts in IT and OT teams as they need to work together when it comes to the responsibility of OT security and converging networks.  

Up until recently, IT and OT teams rarely worked together as OT security teams were not in charge of advanced threats and IT security. With the advancement of operational technology and the adoption of industrial IoT devices, the need to converge IT and OT networks and systems is becoming more popular by the day with industrial organizations. 

With the increasing usage of IP-based communications with OT devices, there is a bigger challenge between IT & OT teams in understanding who is in charge of securing OT systems and this has created a cultural divide between teams. IT and OT teams' technical barriers and lack of clear ownership are the key challenges why IT and OT teams are less open to working together. While the awareness of this challenge is increasing, we are seeing more organizations invest in technologies and governance platforms to ensure improved collaboration as they see that proper IT-OT convergence is a crucial aspect of their cyber security program.

Similar to families making up at the end of the Thanksgiving dinner, when IT & OT teams both come to the mutual table to wine and dine, it can result in improved visibility and transparency for an organization's complete network security. At SCADAfence we have seen many of our customers adopt a seamless IT-OT convergence approach including one of the leading oil and gas organizations who are experiencing complete network visibility to all 71 of their global production sites. 

We've also learned in our global survey this year that 51% of organizations have already achieved full IT-OT convergence. 

2. OT Detection & Response

As industrial organizations become more interconnected, they potentially have more exposure to vulnerabilities. The high cost of industrial equipment and the damages to communities and economies that an attack could cause are key factors for organizations who are looking to protect their industrial networks. In addition, aging legacy equipment in factories, safety regulations that forbid any modifications being made to equipment and industry compliance regulations have created quite the challenge for OT teams.

Despite all of this, it is possible to secure OT industrial networks without disturbing regular operations and without risking non-compliance. By using OT security solutions that provide continuous threat detection and establishing the right security policies, OT security teams can put an effective OT strategy in place that will protect their organization’s processes, people and profit while significantly reducing security incidents and vulnerabilities.

3. Asset Inventory Management 

Effective cyber security in OT requires a deep foundation of asset information. Until recently OT teams didn’t have the resources or tools to maintain such an assets inventory. Organizations need to change their approach to asset inventory management and see it as the foundation of their OT cyber security program.

When detecting new vulnerabilities in OT networks and devices, organizations rely on their asset inventory to decide the severity of the vulnerability, how to patch the device and how it affects their environments. With an automated asset inventory, industrial organizations will increase the productivity and efficiency of their OT teams by quickly managing their assets data to detect and protect their environments all in one dashboard.  

Consulting firm Gartner included high quality, automated asset-inventory as a must-have in their guide for choosing OT security protection. 

4. Governance and Compliance 

Compliance regulations in OT are another aspect for security leaders to be thankful for. It is crucial for the security and production of industrial organizations. In recent years, there has been a growing demand for standards and guidelines to manage the risk exposure of OT infrastructures. IT and OT departments, which typically manage the cyber security standards for the organization, are now required to monitor the compliance of these standards across the various OT locations. On the other hand, the information provided today by the various IT tools is dispersed and technical in nature. This makes the ability to translate them into risks and to prioritize actionable mitigations, very challenging and time-consuming. 

Organizations need to automate the process of IT security governance solutions which will enable IT and OT departments to centrally define and monitor the organizational adherence to organizational policies and to OT-related regulations. The solution should be configured and managed from a central location and aggregates compliance information from all sites in the organization. It also connects to other security systems, providing a cross-organizational, comprehensive compliance posture. 

The need to adhere to government regulations is also one reason we believe CISOs should be considering increasing their cyber security budgets. 

5. OT Remote Access

Industrial organizations have undergone an evolution. Where most OT environments were once isolated systems, now most OT systems are connected to the internet. This is occurring due to organizations deploying new technology that allows increased remote access management to OT systems. 

Providing remote access to OT systems it creates an advantage for industrial organizations but it also comes with more risks. By increasing the connectivity of OT systems and devices to the internet it can result in exploitation via cyber attacks. The constant increase of attacks on critical infrastructure and the convergence of IT and OT systems has quickly increased the adoption of remote access security in critical infrastructures and industrial organizations.

To fight off remote access security risks within OT environments, organizations need to deploy OT security standards that come integrated with remote access features that are specifically designed for OT environments. By deploying an OT security platform that integrates remote access security that does not require any changes in network architecture, it will ensure that the OT systems are properly configured to detect and correlate remote user activity and detect if there is any malicious network activity.

Happy Holidays!

Finally, all of us at SCADAfence would like to thank our readers. It’s a privilege to share our passion for a subject with fellow security-minded folks. We wish everyone whose celebrating a safe and happy Thanksgiving!