[E-Book] The State of OT Cyber Security

[E-Book] The State of OT Cyber Security | SPONSORED

Many predictions from ten years ago about a rapid rise in cyber-physical attacks did not come true. Certainly, there has been significant financial damage to many firms resulting from powerful intrusions and attacks. However, relative to the IT world, OT has remained relatively unscathed.

The real question is what the patterns of historical attacks, emerging threat vectors, and new OT initiatives connecting to ever more physical systems in the cyber world means for the next decade.

Operators are not planning for this year or next. They make long- term investments in cyber security initiatives that take time to mature. This document is intended as a perspective on what a ten-year outlook might look like, drawing on history and creative analogies.

Contested and publicized predictions

• There will be an increasing number of a cybersecurity attacks on industrial systems and the possibility of successful attacks having far-reaching catastrophic impacts
• Ransomware/wiper attacks will become even more mainstream and prevalent by opportunistic and malicious actors
• State actors are already deep within the world’s critical infrastructure system and can be engaged at a moment’s notice when geo-political events warrant
• More and more advanced actors will develop insight into specific OT processes causing a rapid increase in reliability and physical safety events

These predictions are too high-level to be helpful in planning a corporate OT cyber security maturity journey. These “doomsday” predictions may come true but assessing their likelihood and what other scenarios may emerge is important to understanding the actions needed to secure private and public sector infrastructure against these threats.

Verve’s view is that we should be planning on three types of threats that may emerge and will require different defensive strategies. Read more in The State of OT Cyber Security e-book sponsored by Verve Industrial and about the Three Types of IoT Security.

This e-book uses IT and OT cyber security history, as well as unique analogies such as Eighteenth-Century piracy in the Atlantic, to draw implications and recommendations for action.