The OT industry has seen rapid growth in the last decade. Although the OT networks have become more efficient with the convergence of IT environments, the environments are also becoming more exposed to cyber risks. Therefore, it is important to get the awareness of OT cyber risk at the executive and board level where decisive actions can be taken by industrial enterprises to improve their security posture.
In this article, we will be focusing on the four ways security leaders are trying to improve their OT security:
#1 Increase awareness
The key question for many industrial managers is how they can be better prepared for complex cyberattacks without compromising productivity or safety. The answer lies in increasing awareness about the intricate ways of cybercrimes. This requires increased efforts to maintain strategies for an ongoing battle to protect critical infrastructure and assets. With the new devices and applications constantly being added each time, the security teams should be aware of how it will affect the networks. Therefore, executives can begin by formulating a plan for communicating timely and accurate information throughout an incident management exercise.
#2 Strong leadership
Leadership teams play a vital role in OT security management. From response and incident planning to organising the key facilities and roles for the team, a CISO should hold the torch of security. Additionally, the security leaders have to be updated with the latest technology and tools that can help them improve their security posture and update their systems. They should know the limitations of what the team can and cannot detect or monitor within the industrial environments, where they need to focus and prioritise the team efforts. A consistent exertion is required from the CISOs to hold the ship and sail through the cyberattacks.
#3 Recognise blind spots
It is crucial to recognise the role of OT networks in operations. They are critical to the processes and a failure can have far-reaching security consequences. Therefore, conduct an honest assessment of the current security status of the ICS networks and identify the blind spots that need priority attention. Next, access and quantify the gaps.
If an attack isn’t detected yet, it doesn’t mean networks are secured and are not attacked. OT leaders cannot trust the limited knowledge at hand and have to always be a step ahead of the malicious actors.
#4 Improve transparency
OT environments structurally lack transparency and prevent effective protection. Real-time visibility into your industrial operations is critical to identifying and mitigating threats to your critical infrastructure. Therefore, security leaders must gain a comprehensive view of these systems with complete visibility into all connected devices, including their type and firmware version as well as their configuration and behaviour. Too often, IT/OT security teams are forced to manually identify all assets on the network, which can be extremely time consuming and may fail to account for every device or system. To automate this process, organisations can deploy asset discovery tools that provide visibility into every device on an OT network.
With these measures, security leaders can move towards better protection and significantly reduce the OT security risk. The advent of newer technologies and processes can be balanced with a leadership that is aware, transparent and identifies blindspots.
