For your customers who rely on operational technology (OT). it pays to take a closer look at their security measures.
According to Fortinet’s 2022 State of Operational Technology and Cybersecurity Report, 93 percent of OT organizations experienced an intrusion in the past year, and 78 percent of them experienced more than three intrusions.
So why address OT security now? The main reason is that your customers operate in digitally connected environments. In the past, OT cybersecurity wasn’t a priority because OT systems were not connected to the internet. As a result, they weren’t exposed to outside cyber threats.
As your customers continue to deploy digital innovation (DI) initiatives, their OT networks converge. Oftentimes they bolt-on point solutions which result in unnecessary complexity, lack of visibility and increased vulnerability across their networks.
Fortinet’s report highlights some other key trends in OT security including:
- OT security intrusions significantly impact your customers’ bottom line: Due to intrusions, nearly 50 percent of organizations surveyed suffered an operational outage that affected their productivity with 90 percent of intrusions requiring hours or longer to restore service.
- Unclear ownership of OT security: Ownership of OT security is inconsistent within the organizations Fortinet surveyed. Only 15 percent of respondents say that their CISO is responsible for OT security at their organization.
- Security gaps resulting from too much complexity: OT security is gradually improving, but security gaps still exist in many organizations. The report found that a vast majority of organizations use between two and eight different security vendors for protecting their industrial devices and have between 100 and 10,000 devices in operation.
3 Ways to Protect Your Clients’ OT
Fortinet’s 2022 State of Operational Technology and Cybersecurity Report offers insights on how best to handle OT vulnerabilities and strengthen your clients’ security postures including:
- Employ solutions that offer centralized visibility of all OT activities: Fortinet’s report reveals that only 6 percent of respondents reported having no intrusions in the past year. These organizations were more than three times as likely to have achieved centralized visibility than their counterparts who were victims of intrusions.
- Consolidate security vendors and solutions: Remove complexity and achieve centralized visibility of devices by integrating OT and IT technology and partnering with fewer vendors.
- Deploy network access control (NAC) technology: Organizations that avoided intrusions in the past 12 months were more than likely to have a NAC such as FortiNAC in place. This security tool ensures that only authorized people can access critical systems and digital assets.
Enhance Your OT Security Using a Platform Approach
Since cybersecurity must now fully span both the IT and OT network environments to be effective, a mesh platform approach like the Fortinet Security Fabric can help keep industrial organizations secure. The Fortinet Security Fabric spans the extended digital attack surface and cycle, enabling self-healing security and networking to protect devices, data and applications across your clients’ entire environments.
Read the report to learn how you can better protect your clients’ OT networks.