PENETRATION TESTING – WELCOME TO CNB TELECOM

OT PENETRATION TESTING

Evaluate the security of your OT environment from a hacker’s perspective to identify exploitable vulnerabilities and blind spots.

OT Penetration Testing Overview

Importance of OT Penetration Testing

Operational Technology (OT) systems are the backbone of critical infrastructures, including power grids, water treatment plants, and transportation systems. As these systems become increasingly connected and digitized, their vulnerability to cyber-attacks rises. OT penetration testing plays a crucial role in safeguarding these systems.

What is OT Penetration Testing?

OT penetration testing involves simulating cyber-attacks on OT environments or Industrial Control Systems (ICS) to identify security vulnerabilities and weaknesses. This proactive approach helps pinpoint potential entry points for malicious hackers, providing a defense against potential attacks.

Methods of OT Penetration Testing

Penetration testers typically employ non-intrusive techniques to identify vulnerabilities in OT networks. These methods may include:

Vulnerability Scanning: Scanning the network to identify known vulnerabilities.
Network Mapping: Creating a map of the network’s layout to understand its structure.
Network Traffic Analysis: Monitoring and analyzing traffic patterns for irregularities.

In some cases, more intrusive techniques are used, such as:

Exploitation Attempts: Attempting to exploit discovered vulnerabilities to demonstrate potential impacts and provide security improvement recommendations.

Goals of OT Penetration Testing

The primary goal of OT penetration testing is to identify and address security weaknesses before malicious hackers can exploit them. This includes vulnerabilities in software and hardware, as well as potential weaknesses in network architecture and configuration.

Offensive Security in OT Penetration Testing

Offensive security techniques are a critical component of OT penetration testing. By using these techniques, penetration testers can evaluate the effectiveness of an organization’s security controls and identify potential gaps that could be exploited by hackers.

Benefits of Regular OT Penetration Testing

Organizations should conduct regular OT penetration testing for several key reasons:

Identify Weaknesses: In infrastructure (hardware), applications (software), and processes (people) to develop effective remedial controls.
Ensure Security Effectiveness: Confirm that implemented security controls are functioning as intended, providing assurance to security teams, senior management, and stakeholders.
Discover New Vulnerabilities: Patching and updates can fix existing vulnerabilities but may also introduce new ones, which regular testing can uncover.
Real-World Scenario Simulation: Beyond stopping unauthorized access, OT penetration testing simulates real-world attack scenarios, showing how well current defenses would perform against a full-scale cyber-attack.

Regular OT penetration testing is essential for maintaining a robust security posture and ensuring that critical infrastructure remains protected against evolving cyber threats.

Why Conduct OT Penetration Testing?

Organizations should conduct regular OT penetration testing for several key reasons:

Identify Weaknesses: Uncover vulnerabilities in infrastructure (hardware), applications (software), and processes (people) to develop effective remedial controls.
Ensure Security Effectiveness: Confirm that implemented security controls are functioning correctly, providing assurance to security teams, senior management, and stakeholders.
Discover New Vulnerabilities: Patching and updates may fix existing vulnerabilities but can also introduce new ones, which regular testing can uncover.
Simulate Real-World Attacks: Beyond preventing unauthorized access, OT penetration testing simulates real-world scenarios to show how well current defenses would perform against a full-scale cyber-attack.

Key Benefits from OT Penetration Testing

Evaluate Protection Effectiveness: Understand how successful hackers would be against the protections and mitigations in your OT environment.
Assess Operational Impact: Determine the potential operational impacts of a compromise.
Identify Attack Types: Understand the types of attacks that may target your OT assets.
In-Depth Technical Analysis: Conduct thorough exploration, analysis, and testing of your OT assets and network security posture.
Prioritize Risks: Identify and prioritize risks that may impact critical OT assets.

We prioritize “Availability” in OT penetration testing, taking appropriate precautions and employing a thoroughly detailed and agreed-upon testing strategy. This ensures comprehensive and valid testing without disrupting operations.

Deliverables from Our OT Penetration Testing and Standards Used

The scope and depth of our service are tailored to your specific needs. Typical assessments include:

Internal Penetration Test: Simulates an insider threat to determine how an attacker with internal access could compromise or damage the network, systems, or data.
External Penetration Test: Identifies and exploits vulnerabilities in hosts accessible from external networks (e.g., IT, Internet).
Application Penetration Test: Simulates attacks on a system to gain unauthorized access.
Wireless Penetration Test: Identifies vulnerabilities in your wireless infrastructure.

The results of our assessment activities are documented in a formal report, which includes:

Assessment Methodology: An outline of the methods used in the penetration test.
Executive Summary: A high-level overview of findings and recommendations.
Detailed Technical Analysis: In-depth technical findings and remediation recommendations.
Vulnerability Classification: Identified security vulnerabilities classified by potential impact and likelihood of exploitation.

Standards Followed in OT Penetration Testing

All our OT penetration tests adhere to best practices set by the following standards:

NIST SP 800-82: Guide to Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Security.
ISA/IEC 62443: Cybersecurity for Industrial Automation and Control Systems.
NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF).
ISO/IEC 27001: Information Security Management Systems.
OWASP Top 10 for ICS Security.
SANS Institute Top 20 Critical Security Controls for Effective Cyber Defense.
ENISA: Good Practices for Industrial Control Systems Security.
CIS Controls for OT Security.
FERC: Cyber Security and Physical Security Standards.

By adhering to these standards and tailoring our assessments to your specific needs, we ensure comprehensive, effective, and reliable OT penetration testing.

What is a Penetration Test?

A penetration test, or “pentest” for short, is a security assessment that simulates an attack by a malicious party on a network or application in order to identify security flaws.

What is OT Penetration Testing?

OT Penetration Testing is a process of simulating a cyber attack on an OT / industrial control system (ICS) to identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the system’s security. This helps organisations to identify potential entry points for malicious hackers and protect against operational technology attacks.

Why is OT Penetration Testing Important?

OT Penetration Testing is critical in identifying potential vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the security of an industrial control system. As these systems become increasingly connected and digitised, they become more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Penetration testing helps organisations to identify potential entry points for hackers and protect against cyber attacks.

Why Do I Need a Penetration Test?

A penetration test helps reduce risk exposure to consequences including health and safety impact, financial loss and repulational damage, resulting from a breach. Having a window into the mind of an attacker, a penetration test helps to uncover targets of opportunity, the path of least resistance, and technical vulnerabilities that, if exploited, may result in any of the above consequences.

When Do I Need a Pen Test? How Often Should I Conduct One?

We recommend Organisations to get to the point where they use penetration testing as a security best practice. In other words there is already a foundational level of cyber security risk management in place with associated controls being followed. An organisation with no cyber risk management in place would benefit more from conducting foundational risk management activities first opposed to a penetration test.

Pen testing is a good way to check the security of your internal processes too; from IT to OT engineering –you can make sure that departments are communicating and doing their jobs effectively, and that the “business as usual” cyber processes are working.

Other reasons you might need a penetration test: if you’re making major changes to your networks, installing new hardware like firewalls or servers with new operating systems in critical zones, reorganising your whole network, adding new zones, moving to a new data centre, or transferring data storage to a cloud.

It’s a good idea to periodically test any environment that contains critical production systems with a penetration test. If you’re changing software or adding new features, it may be a good time to do an application penetration test.

How Often Should an Organisation Conduct OT Penetration Testing?

The frequency of OT Penetration Testing will depend on various factors such as the size and complexity of the OT environment, the rate of change in the network, and the regulatory requirements. It is recommended that organisations conduct regular assessments of their OT environment and perform OT penetration testing at least annually to maintain the security of their critical infrastructure.

What are the Different Techniques Used in OT Penetration Testing?

OT Penetration Testing techniques can include vulnerability scanning, network mapping, analysis of network traffic, and attempting to exploit vulnerabilities discovered during the initial assessment. A penetration tester will typically use non-intrusive techniques to identify potential vulnerabilities in an OT environment.

What is the Difference Between a Pentest and a Vulnerability Assessment Scan?

There are a couple of big differences. First, a Vulnerability Assessment (VA) scan is an automated test. A penetration test is performed by qualified individuals that actually dig into the complexities of your network environment and actively try to exploit any vulnerabilities that they may discover.

A VA scan typically only identifies vulnerabilities at a high level, the scan is not intended to exploit vulnerabilities, and produces an indication report. A pentester will dig deeper and attempt to identify root causes of vulnerabilities; they use their experience and creativity to gain access to systems and extract sensitive data.

One way to think about the difference between pen tests and VA scans is that VA scans are meant to regularly and quickly give you high-level insights into your network, while pentests go to a deeper level of security testing and are typically performed less often.

How Does Penetration Testing Improve Security in My Company?

Penetration testing helps prioritise investments in your OT Security Program. Penetration testing is practical and helps understand the impact of each missing or ineffective control within your business.

What are the Benefits of OT Penetration Testing?

The benefits of OT Penetration Testing include identifying vulnerabilities in the OT network, understanding the potential impact of an attack, and providing recommendations for improving the security of the OT environment. This helps organisations to strengthen their security posture, protect against operational technology attacks, and maintain the integrity of their critical infrastructure.

What Do I Need to Know Before a Pentest?

To prepare for a pentest, you will need to answer some important questions: what is my motivation? What do I really want to find out? What are my compliance requirements? These answers will help us know how to approach the testing.

Do you just want to know that you’re secure for your own peace of mind? Do you want to improve and evaluate your security posture? Do you need to increase security awareness for upper management in your company? Perhaps you want to justify spending for security expenses. Do you want to identify your controls and have confidence that they are working? Perhaps you are having a lot of security incidents and you want to reduce the frequency and the impact of those incidents.

OT PENETRATION TESTING

OT Penetration Testing Overview

Importance of OT Penetration Testing

What is OT Penetration Testing?

Methods of OT Penetration Testing

Goals of OT Penetration Testing

Offensive Security in OT Penetration Testing

Benefits of Regular OT Penetration Testing

Why Conduct OT Penetration Testing?

Key Benefits from OT Penetration Testing

Deliverables from Our OT Penetration Testing and Standards Used

Standards Followed in OT Penetration Testing

What is a Penetration Test?

What is OT Penetration Testing?

Why is OT Penetration Testing Important?

Why Do I Need a Penetration Test?

When Do I Need a Pen Test? How Often Should I Conduct One?

How Often Should an Organisation Conduct OT Penetration Testing?

What are the Different Techniques Used in OT Penetration Testing?

What is the Difference Between a Pentest and a Vulnerability Assessment Scan?

How Does Penetration Testing Improve Security in My Company?

What are the Benefits of OT Penetration Testing?

What Do I Need to Know Before a Pentest?

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