“The automotive manufacturing industry heavily depends on Operational Technology (OT) to ensure high efficiency and minimal production down time. As a result, the sector is one of the leading industries in digitisation and automation, whilst these changes bring positive improvements to the sector as a whole, they also introduce increased cyber security risks.”
Industry 4.0 has its benefits, from increased automation, process improvements and new levels of efficiencies, it can also expose critical OT to security vulnerabilities, while presenting new windows of opportunity for cybercriminals.
Traditionally, cyber security was not a critical consideration because a manufacturer’s OT environments were designed to be isolated, communicating via proprietary industrial protocols and operated via custom hardware and software. Those traditional systems had limited exposure, whereas, today, OT environments have converged with mainstream technologies and are often no longer air-gapped from IT networks, meaning that the lack of adequate security measures poses a critical risk.
This evolution has not gone unnoticed by threat actors. Industrial Control System (ICS) and OT-specific malware such as Industroyer, Triton and Incontroller are evidence of the increasingly sophisticated capabilities that attackers have begun to deploy, resulting in serious incidents.
Perception (What is happening?):
Comprehension (Why do I care?):
In the context of an organisation with no or limited OT cyber security risk management, CNB Tel recommends a holistic approach when defining an effective OT cyber security risk management strategy/programme.
The first step in this journey is to understand risk and consequences to the organisation. At a basic level, this means identifying the most critical OT functions essential to fulfilling the organisation’s business operations, and the potential consequences of a cyber attack against them. The knowledge of an organisation’s system custodians and engineers should be leveraged to identify methods an adversary could use to compromise critical OT functions. This valuable knowledge includes technical system architecture details, procedural and ways of working insights, like logical user access, third-party service provider scope, supply chain considerations, physical security etc. Real-world cyber scenarios seen across industries should be considered, of course, not all will be applicable, but to ensure completeness and due diligence they should be considered.
The ultimate aim of this initial analysis is to identify and prioritise risks that result in high-consequence events for the organisation. It also provides a high-level snapshot of current risk exposure and whether this exposure is within or out of organisational risk appetite/tolerance. Any subsequent OT cyber security strategy/programme and risk mitigations should be aligned accordingly with this analysis to ensure tangible risk reduction that is outcome focused. This approach helps organisations justify OT cyber security improvements and the associated costs by being armed with better information and understanding of “What, Why and How?”
The second stage in the journey sees the definition and establishment of an overarching OT Cyber Security Framework (OT-CSF) that delivers formalised policies, procedures, datasets, work instructions and best practice guidance designed for OT cyber security risk management. The OT-CSF should be aligned accordingly with guidance provided within industry frameworks such as:
The scope and depth of the OT-CSF must be realistic and defined based on factors such as plausible operational business risk and regulatory compliance requirements. An overburdensome OT-CSF may deliver perfect cyber security on paper, but in reality, will likely be ignored or worked around rendering it ineffective. At a minimum, an OT-CSF should include:
The above represents a foundational level of controls that can be supplemented as organisational OT cyber maturity increases. Supplementary controls can be procedural or technology-based and include:
Knowing which business risks, regulatory drivers, and real-time operational insights to focus on is only the start of the OT cyber security journey. Organisations must also be realistic about their ability to execute and sustain a strategy/programme, therefore they should ask:
The ultimate aim is to reduce an organisation’s exposure to weaknesses and vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malicious threat actors. Additionally, greater awareness of cyber risk and formalised ways of working reduce the likelihood of cyber incidents caused by workforce error or misuse of OT assets.
Of course, one size does not fit all, therefore a focused process of discovery and risk assessment is paramount to identify an effective but sustainable blend of controls that meet business needs and address the cyber risks being faced.
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