<p style="font-size:24px">And a risk.</p>
On the plant floor, as connectivity increases, so does complexity— and so do security concerns for both operations technology (OT) and IT.
Every new asset you put on the network is another security consideration, and another risk that requires monitoring.
In many manufacturing facilities, the increasing number of assets is making it difficult to see security context and truly understand the network at any given moment. Organizations lack the ability to identify what even just normal network activity looks like. When abnormal conditions arise, that means they have no baseline for comparison—making it difficult to identify threats.
Why can’t they see the network? Since industrial control system (ICS) environments consist of many types of equipment operating with many different Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) protocols, getting a centralized view is difficult, if not impossible. The greater scope of asset types and ages presents challenges that traditional IT environments don’t encounter.
At the same time, the manufacturing industry is becoming an increasingly alluring target for cybercriminals. Again, because of all those assets. Each one is a potential entry point. With so many devices at their disposal, cybercriminals are using ransomware to extract money from manufacturing organizations.
Plus, many manufacturers are operating with aging assets and equipment. Having originated in a time far removed from today’s threats, this equipment wasn’t designed to guard against complex, high-tech cyberattacks. And that leaves the IT/OT staff to pick up the slack.