Ensuring security in Operational Technology systems is crucial in today’s landscape. As threats against these industrial control systems, which support our critical infrastructure, continue to grow, maintaining diligence and robust cybersecurity measures is essential.
Recognize the Unique Threat Landscape for OT Systems
Threats targeting OT systems can be categorized into two types: tailored and opportunistic. Tailored threats are typically associated with advanced persistent threats—carefully planned attacks designed to achieve long-term impacts on specific targets. These attacks are specifically designed to disrupt and hijack critical operational processes and are often attributed to state actors and highly sophisticated adversaries. In contrast, opportunistic attacks exploit known vulnerabilities, and it has been found that about 70% of all attacks fall into this very category.
Adding further complexity to this challenge is the involvement of evolving threat actors, including cybercriminals and hacktivists.
Address the Key Challenges in OT Security
OT cybersecurity is peculiar in many ways, differing from the conventional IT environment. One key challenge in securing OT systems is the cultural and operational gap between IT cybersecurity professionals and the engineers who manage OT environments. About 60% of OT pros agree that there is a large difference in communication and priorities. IT teams focus mostly on security issues, while OT focuses on operational uptime and safety considerations.
The other critical challenge is with legacy systems and no visibility within OT environments. Research indicates that 75% of the technology within OT systems is outdated, posing significant risks due to lack of visibility and reliance on outdated security protocols These are what make the systems quite difficult to protect effectively, found the process of real-time threat detection increasingly complex.
Implement Core Cybersecurity Best Practices
Overcoming these challenges requires establishing a strong foundation of cybersecurity best practices for OT systems. In particular, this can become possible with a comprehensive inventory of assets and technology to run continuous monitoring for immediate visibility and anomaly detection. Maintaining an inventory of all assets and running continuous monitoring makes an organization 30% more likely to detect and respond to security incidents, preventing major damage.
Bridging the IT-OT Security Divide
OT systems require a unified approach that bridges the traditional divide between IT and OT practices. Practices in IT security moving into OT environments can provide a much more integrated and effective security framework. Companies that have successfully integrated IT and OT practices report up to a 40% improvement in their overall security posture.
Establishing a cross-functional center of excellence, where IT and OT professionals share best practices and develop comprehensive security strategies, could further enhance these efforts.
Focus on Incident Response and Threat Detection
In addition to these core practices, all organizations should implement robust cybersecurity, incident response, and threat detection capabilities. This should be followed by periodic vulnerability assessments and incident response plans tailored for each OT environment in the event of a breach.
These therefore remain across-the-industry collaboration and information-sharing initiatives that supplement collective security efforts. This proactive approach, leveraging threat intelligence from across industries and adhering to best practices, enables organizations to stay prepared for changes in the cyber landscape.
Future-Proofing OT Security
As the threat landscape becomes a moving target in itself, organizations have to keep new developments in view and further develop their security protocols and technologies. OT systems must be able to ensure long-term resilience, driven by constant improvement and looking ahead.
Knowing the differentiated landscape of threats, key challenges, enforcement of core best practices in cybersecurity, bridging the IT-OT security divide, and incident response and threat detection are ways to future-proof an OT security posture and safeguard critical infrastructure against a wide variety of cyber threats.
FAQs
- Why is OT security becoming more critical in today’s digital landscape?
The more OT and IT systems converge, the more OT environments are exposed to cyber threats. This should thus be accompanied by strict security measures to protect these critical infrastructures.
- How can organizations overcome the challenges posed by legacy OT systems?
These can be overcome by continuous monitoring of the organizations concerned, frequent vulnerability assessments, and the establishment of best practices in IT security in OT environments.
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