A Swiss Army Knife for Industrial Operations Protection

When we think about a Swiss Army Knife, we immediately picture a high-quality, multi-functional tool to help us tackle a wide array of tasks. The digital equivalent is the smartphone. A more security-specific example is the all-in-one, wireless home protection system. These solutions typically include sensors for windows, doors, and rooms, as well as cameras to remotely see what is happening inside and out, and an app to control everything from wherever you are. The objective is to make it as easy as possible to monitor, protect, detect, and act quickly against intruders and other threats like leaks, floods, and fires.


The Swiss Army Knife approach helps ensure we’re prepared for many different situations and can act fast. It also makes sense for how we should approach industrial cybersecurity. Here are just three reasons why.


1. Simplicity. The 25+ year gap between IT and Operational Technology (OT) security means that OT networks have few, if any, modern security controls in place, as many of these Industrial Control Systems are legacy assets that were not designed with security in mind and were previously isolated, until digital transformation came along. This affords us the opportunity to start with a clean slate. There is no need to recreate the complexity of the IT security stack with 15+ tools and engage in time-consuming physical segmentation projects. Applying the same IT security playbook to your OT environment takes too long and often isn’t effective or necessary. What’s needed is a single, agentless solution that can be implemented quickly and integrated into IT systems and workflows. With asset visibility to identify vulnerabilities and suspicious behavior, continuous threat monitoring to detect and track threats that cross the IT/OT boundary, and secure remote access solutions with strict controls over sessions, we can jumpsta ..

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