In our last blog entry, we saw why its crucially important to secure industrial control systems (ICS) and how their lack of security features makes them a challenge for network administrators to defend.

Now let’s look at how Secure Industrial Assessments of your ICS/OT environment can help you get a better understanding of how and where to layer in security to protect these vital systems that drive your business.

A good Secure Industrial Assessment should evaluate four key areas:

1. Alignment with Security Controls – Do the IT systems in your industrial environment align with the controls of a proper cybersecurity framework?
2. Zero-Trust Network Architecture – Do all access points into OT adhere to the same rigorous authentication requirements? Are there any shortcuts into your OT that bypass them?
3. IT/OT Boundary – Is security at the boundary between your business network and ICS properly enforced?
4. Inventory and Vulnerabilities – Do you have an up-to-date and accurate inventory of all OT devices and a clear understanding of how they connect to each other and the IT environment?

Once it’s finished, the final outputs of the Secure Industrial Assessment should yield the following benefits:

1. Reduce the Risk of Production Downtime – Avoid costly unplanned downtime by ensuring secure IoT device deployments and resilient shared services for IT and OT industrial applications are in place.
2. Confirm On site Protection Across Each Site – Verify that remote connectivity is secure and seamless across your industrial site for the health and safety of employees and the communities supporting them.
3. Improve Security and Resilience – Provide a better understanding of complex networks of simple devices, from supervisory systems to process controls, with a customized blueprint that improves the security of your industrial systems.

In our experience, an effective Secure Industrial Assessment uncovers an average of:

• 200 critical vulnerabilities
• 25 assets the client did not know about
• 15 inbound external connections of which the customer was unaware

If your organization wants to improve or evaluate its ICS cybersecurity, iON brings over 75 years of combined experience in securing industrial control systems into every Secure Industrial Assessment we provide.

We are here to help you keep your business safe: https://www.ionunited.com/contact/