Page 41 - Security Today, January/February 2022

“Finally, companies can proactively monitor and respond to cybersecurity incidents by implementing industrial cybersecurity countermeasures on OT networks.”
such as firewalls and possibly introduce viruses or malware on to industrial networks. This is why horizontal protection such as virtual patching and intrusion prevention is crucial to protect critical assets such as PLCs and HMIs.
INDUSTRIAL IPS SAFEGUARDS CRITICAL ASSETS
Since PLCs and HMIs are designed to control production pro- cesses, if the communication between PLCs and the control center is compromised or HMIs malfunction, it could cause damage to assets or even staff. Therefore, it is important to prevent any un- authorized protocols or functions going through PLCs and HMIs. An Industrial intrusion prevention system (IPS) features OT-cen- tric Deep Packet Inspection technology, which can identify multi- ple industrial protocols and allow or block specific functions, such as read/write access. This way, you can be more confident that the traffic on your industrial networks is non-malicious, and is trusted.
VIRTUAL PATCHING PROTECTS UNPATCHED DEVICES
A well-known rule is to keep devices updated in order to prevent any cyberthreats. However, in industrial networks, it is sometimes less ideal to stop the operations to perform the updates. Further- more, updates may not be available for these critical assets.
For instance, some HMIs are running on Windows XP, which no longer supports updates. Under such circumstances, virtual patches play an important role to safeguard critical assets from the latest cybersecurity threats.
SECURITY MANAGEMENT OFFERS CLEAR VISIBILITY
When a network is up and running it can be quite a challenge to maintain and quickly adjust the network. Therefore, security management software is very helpful for managing devices and security policies, as well as performing virtual patches.
As there is no single cybersecurity solution, organizations have to examine their status and select the right combination of solutions. Try to think from both perspectives
of secure network infrastructure and industrial
cybersecurity to build vertical and horizontal
protection.
Alvis Chen is the global marketing, integrated marketing project manager at Moxa.
Wireless vehicle sensors, motion detectors for driveways, backyards, entrances and more.
www.dakotaalert.com 605-356-2772
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