The digitalization and connectedness of industrial environments is opening up business opportunities and enhancing operational efficiency. At the same time, it exposes organizations to cyberattacks that can offset these gains.
Today’s industrial environment consists of operational technologies (OT) which, according to some sources, are largely outdated. They have interoperability and connectivity limitations, and weak or no security management capabilities and procedures.
The increased convergence of OT with the traditional IT environment is leading to an increase in inherent vulnerabilities, which are doubling every year.
The OT environment is fundamental for ensuring the continuation of industrial operations that keep global economies and infrastructures running. To improve OT environment security, the World Economic Forum in collaboration with partners from the electricity, manufacturing, and oil and gas industries, has developed a list of guiding principles. Combined with a set of best practices, these aim to help cyber leaders ensure a cyber resilient OT environment for uninterrupted and efficient business operations.
- Principle 1: Perform comprehensive risk management of the OT environment.
- Principle 2: Ensure OT engineers and operators of installations have responsibility for OT cybersecurity.
- Principle 3: Align with top organizational leadership, strategic planning teams and third parties to make security-by-design a reality.
- Principle 4: Make cybersecurity standards and best practices contractually enforceable on partners and vendors to build a cybersecure OT environment.
- Principle 5: Run joint tabletop exercises to ensure preparedness in case of an actual incident.
These principles and best practices can help organizations safeguard, maintain and monitor their industrial OT environment as well as ensure business continuity. While many organizations may already have some measures in place to ensure a cyber resilient OT environment, shared guidance can help manage cyber risks at the ecosystem level to increase systemic resilience.
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