Ep. 178 Protecting Critical Infrastructure

 While everybody is focusing on Artificial Intelligence, malicious actors are going after the soft underbelly of modern technology: operational technology, or OT.  Today, we take a look at the increasing threat of cyber-attacks on operational technology (OT) systems, which are often not built with security in mind.

Operational Technology is represented by control systems, logic controllers, and other end points found in critical infrastructure like water and systems that generate energy, like oil, natural gas and even nuclear. Today’s experts share ideas on how to mitigate risk through.

Collaboration: Throughout the federal government communities are being formed that seek to share information on OT threats.  For example, CISA has a Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative that serves as a clearing house for communication between industry and the federal government.

Continuous monitoring:  Marty Edwards works on several federal committees to try to establish data formats that would allow for interoperability to monitor attacks and update existing operational technology.

Proactive measures:  Jonathan Feibus from the NRC shares that 90% of the systems he monitors are focused on Information Technology. Vendors seeking solutions to this problem should look at extending methodologies built for IT into the realm of OT.

The discussion ended with a discussion of the integration of IT and OT security, the role of AI in enhancing security, and the need for comprehensive asset inventories and risk assessments.