Can You Be Industry 4.0 Without Cybersecurity?

Let’s start with the conclusion. Even if you don’t read this whole post there is one thing you should take away from this: If you are in the process of implementing Industry 4.0 type initiatives, make sure you are planning and deploying cybersecurity protection at the same time. And to answer your next question, no your current IT cybersecurity isn’t enough, but you can read more about that here.

What is Industry 4.0?

Industry 4.0 started to be thrown around as a buzzword coined as part of the German government development strategy nearly a decade ago. But today this digital transformation is becoming a reality in many industries. Concretely what it refers to is the networking of cyber-physical systems, the development of the internet of things (IoT) and the push toward cloud and remote computing. The goal of this transformation is to drive increased efficiency, faster production, and improve agility and responsiveness. Sounds great. It is great. But all that connectedness comes with risks.

What are the Risk Factors?

Organizations have had decades now to harden the defences of their IT infrastructure. But the networking of OT systems that have traditionally been air-gapped has introduced new vectors for attack. In a 2020 survey of manufacturing executives carried out by CGI, 69% indicated they faced cybersecurity challenges, up from 59% in 2019.

Connecting your OT infrastructure to other systems and to the internet expands your surface of risk and provides new attack vectors. The types of systems you need to protect are different from IT systems. From industrial control systems (ICS) that can fully automate facilities to supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, distributed control systems (DCS) and manufacturing execution systems (MES) to all the ways your humans interact with these systems, each set of interconnections represent potential vulnerabilities. And then you also need to consider the security of any supply chain or distribution partners you connect to. Those vulnerabilities need to be identified and mitigated or you face an elevated risk.

Where Do You Start?

The holy trinity of cybersecurity is simple: Assess, Secure, Monitor. You need to start with an audit and then move on to create a strategy and action plan. You can learn more about that here. Where most organizations fall down (and it has knock-on effects on your security posture) is in the Assess phase. Everyone wants to skip straight to Secure, talk to vendors and deploy systems. But cybersecurity is about much more than systems. It’s about understanding risk. It’s about good organizational security practices and data governance and other factors that will work hand in hand with your cyberdefense to improve your security posture and reduce your risks. Ignore one aspect and you undermine the effectiveness of all your other investments.

Why is Monitoring so Crucial for Industry 4.0

Step 3 in the trinity is Monitoring. But if you’ve done steps one and two successfully why is step 3 so important? For industrial organizations and manufacturers, monitoring may be the most important aspect of your cybersecurity strategy. Think of your firewalls, SIEM, and endpoint protections as a perimeter. You are investing heavily in guarding your perimeter. But what those perimeter defences don’t do is give you any visibility on what is happening inside your network. That means if there is a compromise you won’t be able to detect it until there are severe, observable consequences. In other words, when it’s too late.

Network monitoring is, exactly as the name suggests, technology that looks at inbound, outbound and internal network activity. The latest generation of smart network monitoring technology focuses on analyzing the behaviour of the devices connected to your network looking for indicators of compromise. The best of these solutions (like our StreamScan CDS) provide visibility into the behaviour of your IT and OT infrastructures, monitoring all your devices and systems for anomalous behaviour and providing alerting and automated blocking of threats. Network monitoring is fundamental for OT protection because of all the novel threats and vulnerabilities that traditional defences can’t adequately guard against.

Find Out How The StreamScan CDS can Protect Your Manufacturing Operations

We’re convinced that after seeing our MDR solution (powered by our CDS network monitoring technology) in action, you won’t want to leave your network and OT infrastructure unprotected again. So we are offering a 30-day free trial that includes:

• Fact-finding session
• CDS configuration
• 30-day free Proof of Concept
• First month activity report and recommendations

Email: Freetrial@streamscan.ai

Phone: 1 877-208-9040