Today with ISSSource

With ongoing attacks occurring via IIoT, digitalization and AI, more and more workers at all levels – from security practitioners to OT users – need training to understand what they should or should not do.

It is easy to think a main control system is secure in a brownfield or greenfield facility. After all, with all the design requirements and connections coming into the DCS, vendors have that all figured out way ahead of time. But what about the packaged systems – or skids – that connect to main system? How secure are they?

Facing a serious crunch of safety experts leaving the manufacturing industry and not enough coming in to fill the void, and add in a complex and more connected digital environment, the sector could use a technological boost. Artificial intelligence could be the answer.

We are going through an advancing digital age, no one can deny that. Data is coming at workers from all directions. There is great knowledge in that data, but who has the time to sort through it, after all, we have to keep making product and keep the process moving safe and sound.

For safety and functional safety, manufacturers need to manage data and be able to identify trends to understand all levels of risk. That is where safety services can come into play

It’s a fact, manufacturing as a whole is losing more and more workers every day. Now add to that the rise in experienced safety professionals getting ready to retire and leave the industry, it is easy to fear that exodus of quality experience. But the key questions are can companies fill the roles? And who or what will take on the safety duties.

When it comes to cybersecurity it has always been about what threats are you facing, or what kinds of vulnerabilities are imminent. Threats and vulnerabilities are something you need to be aware of and protect against, the reality is if you don’t know the consequence or if there is no consequence from a threat, then why bother protecting against it. A consequence-based cyber risk management approach is vital for protecting OT and ICSes across the board.

It is a tried and true scenario in the industrial environment, where Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition or SCADA systems can run for 20, 30, even 40 years. With these aging, but productive legacy systems created before cybersecurity was even a thought, it is hard to imagine how anyone can protect them. There has got to be a better way.

Use of removable media in the industrial sector today is continuing to grow and it is just as vulnerable now as it has been over the past five to ten years. A new report is out that analyzes USB-borne malware and some of the results are very interesting.

People, process and technology are three critical components to any security program. When they all are working and in sync, everything comes together in a perfect harmony – and systems stay safe and secure and up and running.

To create a secure manufacturing enterprise, you need to apply defense in depth. That means at a very basic level, if a threat actor is able to get through one level of defense, there are plenty more for them to wade through. A solid defense in depth program can truly halt an attack or really slow it down.