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4 Step Guide to Stronger OT Security

11.09.2020 Read
4 Step Guide to Stronger OT Security

What is OT Security?

Gartner defines OT security as, “Practices and technologies used to:

  • Protect people, assets, and information,
  • Monitor or/and control physical events, devices, processes,
  • Initiate state changes to organization’s OT systems.”

In other words, OT security is the practice of using hardware and software technologies to monitor, detect, and control changes to processes, events, and devices. The purpose behind using OT security is to protect industrial systems and networks such as smart city appliances, transportation networks, and power stations.

4 Step Guide to Stronger OT Security

The following sections elaborate 4 step guide that all security professionals should focus on to protect their OT assets most effectively.

1.      Creating Inventory and Identifying OT Vulnerabilities

In this stage, OT experts are required to establish an accurate OT asset inventory with baselines for each. A complete network map is also required to map all inbound and outbound communication. A complete assessment should be made to identify vulnerability to OT assets and security controls required to mitigate those risks.

2.      Acquiring Automated Threat Intelligence Feeds with SOAR

Threat intelligence data provides valuable information regarding threats. Today, threat intelligence feeds are available, including industry, governmental, and commercial feeds. However, one of the important concerns is converting such intelligence feeds into actionable intelligence. To this end, OT security professionals should deploy automated threat ingestion capabilities in network monitoring solutions. We can achieve automation through Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) tool.

3.      Information Sharing and Leveraging Integrations

If you are proactively monitoring your OT environments through a Logsign SOAR solution, you will be able to collect vital information about security, networking, and operational events. Your company might involve different stakeholders such as partners, customers, or outsourcers. You need to decide whom will you share the information that you have collected during the previous phase (2). You also need to leverage bi-directional integrations between security solutions to effectively implement this step and reduce the Mean Time to Response (MTTR).

4.      Back/Restore

Creating an optimal back of OT data is a vital approach that can ensure data availability even after the data breach. To this end, first, create a back copy of the OT data and then perform a test restore to ensure that the entire backup system and restore system is working properly and accurately.

Conclusion

OT systems are largely being used in industrial environments and cybersecurity has become their main issue. However, you can avoid and mitigate OT threats by proactively identifying, classifying, and monitoring your OT infrastructure.

To proactively identifying, you are required to use a Threat Hunting technique. You can use automated threat hunting using a Logsign SOAR system.

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