Operational technology security involves a full slate of hardware and software systems that monitor, control, and change physical devices and events. OT security best practices help safeguard these environments from cyber threats, which can result in disastrous and catastrophic outcomes.

Attacks on OT infrastructure can impact real-world processes responsible for emergency services, water treatment plants, traffic management, and more. While OT and IT teams may be siloed, they share common goals regarding uptime and maximizing productivity.

Physical Security

Physical security is securing a business’s buildings, equipment, and physical assets against threats like theft, vandalism, and natural disasters. It also includes measures for protecting a business against hacking, sabotage, and terrorism.

External threat safeguards for operational technology aim to meet industrial processes’ unique requirements, including safety, uptime, and production efficiency. It differs from IT security, which is focused on securing IT networks, cloud services, and servers and implementing baseline security measures.

The distinction between IT and OT may blur as industrial processes become increasingly digital. For example, OT systems may now connect to IT networks that monitor and control data flow for business processes. This integration opens the OT system to new attack vectors that can compromise uptime, stability, and productivity.

This convergence is particularly important in critical infrastructure and industrial environments, where OT systems are typically mission-critical. Unfortunately, OT and IT teams have different priorities regarding security, which can lead to duplication of effort and inefficient management of the attack surface. To overcome this challenge, ensure that the right teams liaise during risk assessment and that all departments have the tools to work together effectively. It may include having a senior leader in each department oversee the project and ensuring that security is not just an IT responsibility but a shared initiative.

Network Security

Network security involves multiple tools that protect data integrity against the entry and spread of various potential threats. Its architecture includes scalable and automated layers of defense that enforce security policies chosen by the administrator.

As OT devices increasingly connect to the Internet, they face cyber threat vulnerabilities as IT networks

1. It can result in a loss of production and safety or even life-or-death situations. Examples include the Stuxnet malware that halted industrial systems like factory assembly lines or attacks on utility networks.

A critical component of network security is the principle of least privilege, which ensures that users are given only the permissions they need to perform their work. Ideally, this is verified through real-time monitoring of control plane protocols to detect unauthorized changes.

Organizations must implement strategies to protect their assets as IT and OT networks converge. It means replacing the air gap that once separated IT from OT and using firewalls that understand OT-specific protocols to isolate these networks and block cyber threats. It also requires deploying detection technologies that understand the difference between legitimate and suspicious activity and are not easily prone to false positive errors. A comprehensive OT security solution should incorporate all these technologies to protect the data and the systems that use it.

Data Security

Data security protects your organization’s data from unauthorized access, corruption, modification, or theft. It requires strategies that include encrypting and tokenizing sensitive information, limiting data access to those needing it, and regularly testing backups. It also focuses on the three core elements of data security: Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.

Data security in OT environments is more important than ever because of the convergence of IT and OT networks. This convergence has created new attack surfaces that traditional security measures cannot address.

Traditionally, OT systems were kept separate from IT environments due to high uptime and production requirements. However, with the advent of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), OT devices are increasingly becoming connected to IT networks. This has exacerbated the need for effective OT security.

Cyberattacks on OT systems can have catastrophic consequences. For example, an attacker could damage equipment by changing or deleting data that affects safety controls. They may also slow down or speed up processes to the point of equipment failure, turn off temperature controls, and cause other issues that threaten operations.

To protect your OT infrastructure, you need to know all of the assets in your network and understand how they communicate with each other. It enables you to identify risks within your infrastructure and make plans to prioritize and mitigate them before they become critical threats.

Access Control

Whether it’s military secrets, the script for the final episode of your favorite TV show, or customer data files, access control is all about restricting access to your vital assets. It could be physical through gates, locks, and fences or virtual through passwords, firewalls, and IPSs. Regardless of the medium, every business facility must devise its plan because no two are alike. Generally, the most common elements of a project include defining the business requirements, determining staff responsibilities, and establishing access control software applications for user management and monitoring.

A basic plan includes a list of authorized users allowed to use the facilities, with specific rules and limits on their use of systems and resources. The most secure methods involve two-factor authentication that requires the user to provide credentials and another factor to validate their identity, such as a security card, PIN, or biometric reading.

Attribute-based access control, the most granular of all models, grants permissions to specific aspects of subjects, objects, or actions and their context. This is commonly used in military and commercial systems.

Authentication, authorization, and auditing are three separate functions that work together in an effective access control system. Accounting (also called accountability) tracks a subject’s activity during and after authentication. This is essential for detecting unauthorized actions, such as unauthorized access to sensitive files or documents.