Critical infrastructures utilizing Operational Technology (OT) and Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are increasingly targeted by the world’s most sophisticated cybercriminals. Cyber attacks including malicious code injection into vulnerable systems and using ransomware against ICS systems have become commonplace.
The growing interconnection between IT and ICS has heightened the cyber threat. This offers an opportunity for attackers, who can now compromise IT systems connected to the internet, establishing their footholds, and move on to disrupt ICS-based industrial operations.A cyberattack on OT and ICS can cause key service disruption, safety risks to people, and significant financial losses. Consequently, resilience and cybersecurity of OT and ICS are of utmost importance to business and society.
Source: SANS 2021 Survey: OT/ICS Cybersecurity – Top Business Concerns
The greatest challenges facing OT security relates to:
Source: SANS 2021 Survey: OT/ICS Cybersecurity – OT Challenges
Despite the growing threat landscape, OT enterprises are hesitant to adopt new defensive technologies, instead favoring established methods like patch management, secure remote access, industrial firewalls, and asset management. Due to the delayed adoption of emerging technologies such as automation, machine learning, orchestration, and AI, it is currently difficult to swiftly uncover security problems and data breaches.
According to the SANS 2021 Survey on OT/ICS Cybersecurity, only 49% of OT businesses use cloud-based services for remote monitoring and analysis of operations. Some OT firms use cloud technology to support ICS operations and cybersecurity activities such as SOC, BCP/DR, and managed security services, but cloud adoption in OT is relatively low.
Source: SANS 2021 Survey, OT/ICS Cybersecurity – Functional use of cloud technologies
The ratio of cloud adoption in OT organizations is relatively low compared to other sectors. For example, (ISC)2 2022 Cloud Security Report shows that more than three-quarters (76%) of organizations utilize two or more cloud providers, while 72% have a hybrid or multi-cloud deployment strategy.
A few years ago, it was widely believed that transferring industrial services to the cloud was a risky choice. Today, however, more executives and decision-makers see the advantages of cloud computing, and there is a greater willingness to move some mission-critical services and data to the cloud. However, safely integrating a cloud service (or multiple cloud services) into an OT environment could present several challenges for network design and security.
Fear and uncertainty can be the biggest deterrent to OT/ICS infrastructures adopting cloud computing. Access to ICS networks and systems is strictly regulated. The thought of another company’s personnel or system having constant access to these critical processes increases the risk that the process could be inadvertently altered or even shut down by variables they do not control.
Cultural resistance can be a significant barrier to cloud migration because OT industries have legacy facilities and employees with a mindset rooted in the past who are solely concerned with operations and system safety.
Interoperability and system complexity are a few of the issues that may postpone the decision to migrate to the cloud. Can on-premises security systems integrate and communicate with cloud-based solutions?
Numerous OT settings constitute critical infrastructures that are highly regulated. Many of these regulations are just catching up with cloud technologies, which may severely limit the possibilities of utilizing cloud solutions.
Decision-makers often lack the necessary knowledge to understand cybersecurity and technical automation. They are largely concerned with business challenges, such as maintaining service availability, integrity and cost-effectiveness. The absence of a cloud-first mentality delays the decision and leadership support needed to migrate OT systems and services to the cloud.
Changes in the wider global economy and technology are the main drivers of evolution in OT organizations, including the (slow) increase in cloud adoption. The adoption of cloud services is significantly influenced by 5G networks and IoT-connected devices. According to a Juniper Research study, there will be 83 billion IoT connections overall by 2024, and the industrial sector will handle nearly 70% of all IoT connections.
As more OT systems become digital, it makes sense for businesses to shift OT systems to the cloud. Moving OT to the cloud can be appealing for many for the same reasons businesses migrated their IT there, including increased reliability, greater flexibility in how resources are used, scalable, and financial advantages.
The cloud enables industrial cybersecurity programs to expand across multiple plants and geographies, providing consolidated network visibility which is the first step towards stronger OT cybersecurity. This centralized approach simplifies data acquisition and risk assessment, enhancing overall OT cybersecurity and allowing for more effective risk management across the enterprise.
Cloud computing is essential for an organization’s digital transformation to enable secure and intelligent industrial environments. The cloud can deliver the required intelligence at higher scale as it supports advanced innovations like predictive modeling, maintenance, and process optimization.
IoT-generated data can be leveraged to provide valuable business insights, thanks to the cloud’s capabilities in data analytics, visualization, and storage. Industrial networks can use the cloud’s vast computational and storage capacity to improve operational efficiency supported by cloud providers’ advanced tools and interfaces for actionable insights through visualization, machine learning, and AI.
Cloud providers offer advanced technologies and cybersecurity solutions, enabling on-demand expansions. Businesses can now shift their IT spending from CAPEX to OPEX model, leveraging machine learning and data science without requiring any in-house expertise.
Industrial businesses are searching for effective ways to provide their workforce access to decision-making resources, enhancing their work and business processes digitally. By securely connecting people with resources, organizations are significantly improving performance, productivity, quality, and cutting operational costs. Safety concerns and travel expenses are being reduced by equipment that can be operated remotely in case of hazardous and remote locations.
To successfully transition to the cloud, reach out to our experts for guidance on your cloud adoption journey.
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