Historically, information technology (IT) environments have always been at the forefront of the majority of cyber attacks, unlike operational technology (OT) environments which have traditionally operated in isolation with separate organizational units, and with separate technologies, standards, governance, and security practices.

The exposure to cyber threats was also negligible, as OT environments were not connected to the internet. But all those silos and air gaps got swept away by the fourth wave of the industrial revolution, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and the fast pace of digitalization in the past couple of years.

Reasons your OT assets are greater risks than ever before

However, the converging worlds of IT and OT have not only increased the risk of IT attacks spilling over into OT, but also forced industries to shed their long-held notions on OT security. The Purdue Model for Industrial Control System (ICS) network segmentation which has been considered to be a hallmark of industrial security so far is no longer sufficient to keep OT systems secure in this era of hyper-convergence.

The model has been trusted by the industries to keep their IT and OT systems separate and secure by defining system components and assets clearly and grouping them into distinct layers.

But today thanks to the rise of Industrial IoT, Systems and devices can easily communicate across those layers making it even more challenging for industries to protect their OT assets from malicious and sophisticated attacks, which is evident from the rising number of OT and ICS cyber incidents in the recent past. While connectivity to OT assets is good in many ways, it also created a new attack surface.

As ICS can now be accessed remotely, it becomes a potential risk to process safety. As a result, many industries have started rolling up OT cybersecurity into IT cybersecurity making the IT department accountable for it. According to Gartner forecasts, 70% of OT cybersecurity is likely to be managed directly by CIO, CISO, or CSO departments soon, up from 35% in 2019.

The diminishing Air Gaps between IT and OT, your OT assets and ICS, which manage critical infrastructure and manufacturing processes have now become more vulnerable to insider threats than your IT assets. Unauthorized access to your OT and ICS environments by malicious, disgruntled, or even unsuspecting insiders can often be more dangerous than many external attacks and can cause considerable operational disruptions.

The Impacts of cyber attacks on critical industrial infrastructures can be far-reaching beyond disruptions, financial loss, or reputational damages. Cyber attackers are likely to weaponize OT environments by 2025 to successfully harm or kill humans, says Gartner.

Understanding the fundamentals of OT cybersecurity:

This indicates that securing the OT environments amidst the growing IT/OT convergence trend is going to be an increasingly challenging task for industries in the coming days. There are specific as well as off-the-shelf solutions available to help businesses deal with these challenges, but there are two key things that businesses must consider carefully before investing in them.

Visibility: Visibility to all your IT and OT assets is crucial to building a robust foundation for OT/ICS security. A major reason behind the industrial community struggling to beef up its security posture and threat detection capabilities is the lack of visibility into their OT assets and ICS environments.. Unlike manual asset inventory which is time consuming and inaccurate, comprehensive asset inventory automated is a step forward to give in-depth visibility of OT and IT assets for improving OT security posture.

Inventory and configuration Management: Asset inventory is the foundation for formulating and implementing any cyber security measure, be it in IT or OT. Asset inventory can be a source of more valuable insights than many might believe is necessary in setting up the right cyber security best practices. In IT, security practitioners have many tools at their disposal to do it effectively. In OT, however, there are not many tools to gather and maintain such an inventory.

Generating a comprehensive inventory of configuration data from proprietary legacy ICS including I/O cards, firmware, installed software, and control strategies into a single repository is also foundational to reducing cyber risks and increasing resiliency by establishing a security baseline, monitoring for unauthorized changes, automating closed-loop patch management, and supporting compliance requirements.

Here’s a panacea for all your OT cybersecurity woes:

PAS Cyber Integrity by Hexagon delivers unmatched OT security by offering comprehensive inventory, vulnerability, configuration, and risk management for OT assets across Level 3.5 to Level 0. In 2021, the solution was recognized by Frost & Sullivan for OT/ICS cybersecurity protection in Global Critical National Infrastructure.

Let’s take a close look at some of its capabilities:

It reduces OT inventory and documentation efforts significantly by addressing visibility challenges into OT and IT endpoints running in the industrial facilities. It improves obsolescence and system upgrade planning too.

The insights on configuration changes across IT/OT assets in OT/ICS networks help to reduce the impact quickly in the event of cyber incidents. Insights on control strategies, mapping, and inter-dependencies of complex OT assets can help incident response teams to come up with an effective security strategy.

A holistic image of vulnerability risk in OT/ICS networks enhances risk-based informed decision-making, helps to optimize risk mitigation tasks based on asset risk profile and saves both time and money by improving Mean Time to Recover (MTTR) following a cyber or operational incident.

Having a complete, and trusted, backup and restore point, also helps to ensure business continuity and get you back up running faster in case of any unforeseen cyber incidents.

PAS Cyber Integrity can reduce compliance and operational efforts significantly by enabling internal and regulatory compliance requirements (e.g., NERC CIP, IEC 62443, NIST 800-82).

Last, but not least the solution can be easily integrated into your existing SIEM, IDS/IPS, and ITSM tools to help you drive a holistic security strategy across your IT and OT assets.