Internet of Things Q
How can Rockwell Automation help customers secure their operating infrastructure?
Modern industrial operations require modern cybersecurity. With our experience as an industry leader in industrial control systems, we have developed cybersecurity solutions built around the NIST framework to help other businesses achieve secure operating infrastructures. One of the reasons Rockwell uses the NIST framework is it allows us to put together a strategy for our customers to achieve a secure infrastructure based around NIST’s five pillars: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond and Recover. The service we provide mitigates the skills gap that a lot of our customers face: it is rare to find engineers that are skilled in both automation and cybersecurity and whilst our customers may have very experienced control engineers, they don’t necessarily understand what they need to do to secure their infrastructure.
Q
What can a customer expect when they first approach Rockwell?
The Identify phase of NIST is very important when customers are starting out on their cyber security journey. A lot of the conversations we are having with customers today revolve around understanding assets and being able to identify the risks and vulnerabilities there are around those assets so they can start to plan what they can do to improve their security posture. As well as looking at asset inventories, we also identify what assets are talking to other assets and if
these assets are communicating directly with external IP addresses. We also ask customers to consider the lifecycle stage of their assets as, for example, a controller that is unpatched can leave control systems vulnerable to cyber issues.
Q
How can customers protect their operating systems when working with external vendors and service providers?
This is covered by the next NIST pillar: Protect. Rockwell takes many steps to ensure that we can work securely with our customers and we advise our customers to do the same. We ask customers to think carefully before granting external access to their sites and networks. Customers should consider who they are letting in and what they will have access to. They should think about who is granting the access and how the access is being granted. There is no single cyber security solution for
working with third-party vendors on an industrial site but we can work with our customers to identify the best way forward to help maintain their security posture. For example, we can help customers to have a well- designed network architecture, looking at not just north-south segmentation but also east-west segmentation so when that third party comes in to provide support on the processing line, for example, they cannot connect and see assets on the packaging line. Rockwell really gets to understand how customer’s factories are working and what their processes are before designing a secure network. As an organisation we have developed the Converged Plantwide Ethernet (CPwE) Design and Implementation Guide in collaboration with Cisco Systems. CPwE helps manufacturers seeking to integrate or upgrade their Industrial Automation and
Control System networks to standard Ethernet and IP networking technologies. It mitigates risks by improving network uptime and equipment availability with superior security.
Q
There are new cyber threats all the time. How can Rockwell help?
This is why we talk about it not being a ‘start-to- end' journey – the threats change on a daily basis and by doing something proactive like by having continuous threat detection on your network, you are protecting your industrial control system. We provide real-time threat detection as a service for customers. We can tune the threat detection platform to get rid of noise and alerts for ‘normal behaviour’ so the information the customer receives is actionable and meaningful. Rockwell can also go one step further with Security Operations Center (SOC) as a Service. Rockwell's SOC as a Service lets customers outsource threat detection and incident response, streamlining security management from set up through reporting. Customers get around-the-clock monitoring and immediate access to top experts with no need to hire or train new personnel.
Q Q Instrumentation Monthly November 2022
Why have cyber security attacks on the industrial sector been on the rise?
Products used in the industrial sector tend to have a much longer lifespan that your typical IT product. We have products that have been in facilities for 25 years. Older industrial control systems were never designed with cyber security in mind - there was no need for it... it didn’t happen. However, the vulnerabilities in these aged assets are well known and this makes it easier for threat actors to strike upon those vulnerabilities. Obsolescence and understanding obsolescence should really be a significant part of any cyber security strategy. Having obsolete assets that are unpatched is a significant risk to any facility.
Do I need to be running a Rockwell industrial control system to benefit from your services?
Our services are completely vendor agnostic so if you would like to know more about securing your industrial control system, visit our website:
www.rockwellautomation.com.
Rockwell Automation
www.rockwellautomation.com
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