FM & TECHNOLOGY
RETHINKING CYBERSECURITY
Remote working has opened up more access points to sensitive operational technology environments. Further rolling outages are inevitable if energy firms don’t protect their critical systems, says Peter Margaris, Head of Product Marketing at Skybox Security.
In May, the UK’s electrical grid was hit by a cyberattack. While the grid emerged relatively unscathed and the country didn’t suffer a NotPetya-esque blackout, the attack has cast a long shadow over energy companies’ ability to withstand future exploits.
This is just one event that underlines the warning shared by the World Economic Forum in April – energy firms are particularly vulnerable to attack and the novel risks introduced by remote working during COVID-19 are making this situation worse.
The exposure of operational technology (OT) networks to external threats has been growing in recent years. These are environments that are difficult, if not impossible, to patch, and are of particular interest to nation-state threat actors. They are also becoming increasingly connected to IT networks and direct third-party risk, as well as attracting new native vulnerabilities. According to Skybox Security’s 2020 Vulnerability and Threat Trends Report Mid-Year Update, the number of new flaws on OT devices has grown by 14% this year.
With remote working opening up more access points than ever to sensitive OT environments, it is wholly possible that we could see rolling outages and safety events at any point if energy firms don’t do more to protect their critical systems.
Legacy systems increase the
complexity of OT security Improving security within OT environments isn’t simple. Many of the systems and devices used by energy companies were designed in an age before cyber threats existed. They were built to be always operational and, until relatively recently, have been shielded from IT threats. But these innate protections are disappearing as time advances and web-derived threats leak from the carpet of HQ’s offices to the concrete of the plant floor. For operations teams, this means now having to incorporate security practices into their jobs while ensuring that they’re still able to ensure continuous uptime.
Part of the struggle here lies in the facilitation of regular scans. Without being able to take their systems offline,
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