t cht lk
“
John Madisson, Senior Vice President,
Products and Solutions at Fortinet
just-in-time manufacturing and interactive
systems tied to Big Data have begun to
change all of that.
A FAILURE IN
ONE OF THESE
SECTORS
ALSO HAS THE
POSSIBILITY
OF CAUSING A
CATASTROPHIC
EVENT AFFECTING
BOTH HUMAN LIFE
AND PROPERTY.
and mobile networks. At the same time,
the specialised nature of OT infrastructure
technologies means that most IT security
and threat intelligence solutions don’t have
visibility into, let alone the ability, to defend
against attacks on critical infrastructures.
While securing OT systems requires an
integrated approach similar to IT, its
objectives are inverted, with availability
being the primary requirement, followed by
integrity and confidentiality. OT systems are
necessarily focused on delivering a particular
essential service, such as electricity or water
or maintaining safety systems at chemical
plants or dams and cannot afford to be
disrupted even momentarily.
Conversely, IT systems are primarily focused
on the collection, correlation and distribution
of data, with a primary focus on protecting
confidential or personally identifiable
information or trade secrets. Addressing
In addition, companies are looking for
productivity improvements and cost savings
by implementing such changes as optimising
plant operations, deploying a more flexible
operating environment or establishing a
more proactive inventory control system that
requires real time online data. As a result,
many of today’s OT systems are transited
or tunneled over corporate networks,
leverage common internet protocols, run on
general-purpose hardware and mainstream
operating systems and are increasingly
connected via wireless technologies.
These critical infrastructure systems are also
increasingly targeted by cybercriminals, with
a reported 51% of critical infrastructure
enterprises reporting an OT/SCADA/ICS
security breach within the past 12 months.
Targeting and taking out a critical
infrastructure system has huge appeal
for many cybercriminals, especially
cyberterrorists or criminal organisations.
Motivations include holding systems
hostage for a ransom, stock price
manipulation (short sell, attack and
reap a ‘clean’ profit), denial of asset or
production for strategic or tactical reasons,
political awareness or impact or corporate
malfeasance (illegal competitive action).
Unfortunately, not only are many of these
now-connected systems quite vulnerable to
compromise, unlike IT networks, a failure in
one of these sectors also has the possibility
96
INTELLIGENTCIO
of causing a catastrophic event affecting
both human life and property.
The consequences of a successful attack can
lead to the disruption, and even destruction
of physical assets and essential services like
water, electricity, and fuel.
As the utility, oil and gas, transportation and
manufacturing sectors increasingly adopt
connected control systems and Industrial
IoT devices, the CI attack surface is rapidly
growing. The connected nature of these
devices and systems poses serious challenges
as they begin to utilise traditionally IT owned
network infrastructure, wireless access points
the requirements of an OT network requires
an integrated approach comprised of the
following elements:
• Segmentation and Encrypted
Communications: Perimeter security
alone is inadequate. Security needs to be
driven deep into the OT infrastructure,
segmenting systems and devices,
actively monitoring east-west traffic
and isolating compromised devices. In
addition, applications and data should
be encrypted in order to prevent the
injection of malware into that traffic.
• Access Control: Access to OT devices
www.intelligentcio.com