Companies in the industry from different economic sectors are currently facing significant cybersecurity challenges that can hamper their operations and jeopardize their businesses.
The increase in IoT initiatives, due to the industrial needs to increase productivity, generates greater exposure to cybersecurity risks, due to the increase in the surface of exposure to potential attacks.
Rockwell Automation has identified 3 problems common to different sectors of the Spanish economy such as the Food & Beverage, Automotive, Pharmaceutical or Water Treatment sectors, which can be summarized as:
-Lack of visibility on risks in the OT environment:
Actually, we could say, total lack of visibility on OT. This situation becomes more complex as a consequence of working with diverse providers, multiple protocols, poorly optimized architectures and many global standards.
To achieve this visibility, it is necessary to centralize all services in a simple platform that offers global visibility of the client’s risks. In addition, it is recommended to carry out an inventory of assets in order to identify vulnerabilities, assess risks and design a continuity plan.
-Lack of investment capacity at the plant level, lack of resources to implement the measures:
Countermeasures need to be implemented to manage risks and the ideal is to do it through a single supplier that acts throughout the global chain, including suppliers, which can mean cost savings. It is essential that this provider can offer a high-level remote support and monitoring service.
Companies in the industry from different economic sectors are currently facing significant cybersecurity challenges
This provider must perform tasks such as design and installation of network infrastructure, design and installation- configuration industrial demilitarized zone (IDMZ) as a fundamental part of perimeter protection, virtualization of OT software platforms, in addition to implementing continuous threat detection services and developing Endpoint protection and USB protection solutions.
-Lack of SOC resources that understand the OT particularities, lack of controls and procedures that effectively allow closing the Detection loop- Answer:
It is necessary to continuously monitor OT cybersecurity risks, so it is necessary to cover IT/OT environments with specialized resources in both fields, offering management, detection and response capabilities at a global level, including the supply chain. For this, it is advisable to have remote managed cybersecurity services such as: management/administration of validated patches, management/administration of secure remote access back-ups, antivirus management, cybersecurity intelligence services (detection, analysis, assessment and response) .
Faced with the increase in cyber threats, there are two priorities that companies operating in the industrial sector must take into account:
Have secure remote access to allow work teams to carry out their activity and keep systems updated (patching). The latter is a continuous challenge, to maintain the level of hygiene at acceptable values, due to the risk of loss of availability of the plant.
Joan Rius, Business Development Leader Connected Services, Rockwell Automation.
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism