What is Operational Technology (OT) Security

Operational technology (OT) refers to the integration of both hardware and software for controlling and supervising physical processes, devices, and infrastructure. This technology is essential across various asset-intensive industries, playing crucial roles from overseeing critical infrastructure to managing robotic systems in manufacturing environments. OT is extensively utilized in sectors such as manufacturing, oil and gas, power generation and distribution, aviation, maritime, rail transport, and utilities, highlighting its diverse applications in different fields. 

OT security refers to the practices and technologies used to protect OT systems when they are connected to Industrial IoT environments. As industrial operations increasingly rely on digital solutions for automation and remote monitoring, securing these systems becomes crucial. OT security helps protect against cyber threats, ensuring that critical infrastructure remains safe and operational. By implementing robust security measures, organizations can enable secure remote access to their OT systems, safeguarding both operational and informational assets. This protection is vital for maintaining the integrity and efficiency of interconnected industrial environments.

OT security and IT security, while using similar tools, differ significantly in their application. When considering IT vs OT, OT systems primarily interact with machine systems, such as industrial control systems (ICS), to ensure operational continuity and uptime.

In contrast, IT security focuses on protecting data and systems used by people. OT security must account for the long life cycles of industrial equipment, often spanning decades, and secure legacy systems that cannot always be patched. Additionally, OT security emphasizes the safety and reliability of physical processes, making its approach distinct from the data-centric focus of IT security. 

Securing operational technology (OT) environments poses several unique challenges, even with the advent of various OT threat detection tools and software in recent years. These challenges include: 

Lack of Bespoke Skills: There is a noticeable gap in cybersecurity expertise within operational teams, and similarly, a lack of manufacturing knowledge in Security Operations Centers (SOCs). This skills mismatch complicates effective OT cybersecurity management.  

Changing Adversarial Tactics: Cyber threats are dynamic and constantly evolving, with adversaries continuously advancing their techniques. This makes it challenging to stay ahead and effectively counter these threats in OT environments.

Passive, Manual Tooling: The sensitive nature of Industrial Control System (ICS) environments often requires tools to be passive. This means they are not configured to automatically trigger a shutdown in the absence of a verified failure, which can delay response times in crisis situations.  

Old Equipment, Exposed Endpoints: Many OT environments operate with legacy equipment, which, coupled with vendor restrictions, limits the coverage of endpoint security tools. This leaves older systems more vulnerable to cyberattacks. 

The convergence of IT and OT systems, along with the adoption of IoT, secure remote access, and cloud technologies, has exponentially expanded the cyber-attack surface.

IT and OT security solutions should collaborate to ensure comprehensive protection for interconnected environments. While IT focuses on data security, OT security safeguards OT systems that manage industrial processes. With the convergence of IT and OT, specialized OT security solutions are essential for monitoring and protecting these systems.

OT systems require tailored IoT and OT security solutions to remotely manage and monitor industrial operations while defending against cyber threats. This integration enhances efficiency and productivity but also necessitates robust security measures to protect both systems and data from vulnerabilities inherent in interconnected environments. 

Historically, OT systems were not connected to the internet, shielding them from online threats such as malware and cyber-attacks. However, the progression towards digital transformation and the blending of IT and OT systems has led many organizations to integrate additional solutions into their infrastructure to tackle new and unique security challenges. This evolution has given rise to intricate network structures that lack cohesive information sharing, reducing overall system visibility for OT cybersecurity professionals. 

Industrial Control Systems (ICS)—which include devices, controls, and network systems managing OT—are crucial for maintaining operational continuity and revenue generation. Commonly used industrial systems include SCADA, DCS, and tailored applications, which are at risk of compromise if threats traverse from IT to OT. OT vulnerabilities can lead to operational downtime, reputational damage, and extensive harm to critical infrastructure used in everyday life, such as drinking water and energy. This makes OT systems a prime target for cyberattacks. 

Enhanced Visibility 

One of the primary advantages of effective OT security is enhanced visibility across the entire network. This involves discovering and identifying every device connected to the OT system and assessing their trust levels. By defining the attack surface, OT security teams can continuously monitor device behavior and traffic patterns, ensuring any anomalies are quickly detected and addressed. Enhanced visibility enables security teams to profile traffic accurately, dictate allowed protocols, applications, and services, and enforce strict security measures. This comprehensive view helps in making informed decisions and maintaining robust security postures across both IT and OT environments. 

Continuous Monitoring 

Effective OT security involves continuous monitoring of network activities to identify and mitigate OT vulnerabilities in real-time. Continuous monitoring allows security teams to gather intelligence on both known and unknown threats, providing a detailed analysis of behaviors within the OT system. Centralized security tools assist in logging, reporting, and analyzing activity across the network. This continuous analysis helps in early threat detection, ensuring that cyber threats are neutralized before they can cause significant damage. Additionally, continuous monitoring supports security information and event management (SIEM) and security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) capabilities, which are crucial for maintaining continuous protection in an ever-evolving threat landscape. 

System and Subsystem Control

Another significant advantage of effective OT security is the enhanced control over systems and subsystems. OT systems often manage critical industrial processes, making it essential to ensure that each system and subsystem performs its designated function without interference. Multifactor authentication (MFA) ensures that only authorized personnel have access to specific areas of the network. Network segmentation and micro-segmentation create zones of control, providing a layered security approach that isolates critical systems and prevents lateral movement of threats. Sandboxing techniques detect potential threats, and automated quarantine measures prevent these threats from causing damage, ensuring the integrity and reliability of industrial operations. 

Creating an effective OT security strategy involves several best practices to ensure comprehensive protection against cyber threats. Here are the key components: 

Mapping the Network Environment 

Begin by mapping your entire OT environment. Identifying all devices and their digital locations in real time is essential for understanding your attack surface and pinpointing sources of issues. Many security vendors offer enhanced device monitoring features. See more information here.

Monitoring for Suspicious Activity

Continuous monitoring of the entire OT ecosystem for suspicious activity is crucial. This includes monitoring vendor and service provider traffic to identify unusual or anomalous behaviors. Effective monitoring helps reduce security risks and maintain a strong security posture. 

Adopting a Zero Trust Framework 

Implementing a zero trust framework is vital for OT security. This approach assumes any device, user, or network may be a threat until authenticated. Multifactor authentication (MFA) and vulnerability management are core elements of zero trust, ensuring that only verified entities can access critical systems. 

Leveraging Access Management 

Access management is critical in OT environments. Identity management and access controls are paramount to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive systems. Proper access management can prevent physically destructive compromises and protect human safety. 

Enacting Application-Level Microsegmentation

Unlike traditional flat network segmentation, microsegmentation at the application level prevents users, including malicious insiders, from discovering and accessing applications they are not authorized to use. This adds an additional layer of security by isolating critical applications from potential threats. 

An effective OT security strategy combines these practices to protect OT systems from evolving cyber threats, ensuring operational continuity and safety. By integrating comprehensive monitoring, zero trust principles, and robust access management, organizations can secure their OT environments against a wide range of security challenges. 

With the increasing sophistication and volume of technical and social engineering attacks in various industrial environments, Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerges as a pivotal tool in enhancing OT cybersecurity.  Many vendors will claim to use AI, therefore it is important to understand which types of AI should be applied for each use case:

‍‍‍Supervised machine learning: Applied more often than any other type of AI in cybersecurity. Trained on attack patterns and historical threat intelligence to recognize known attacks.‍

Natural language processing (NLP): Applies computational techniques to process and understand human language. It can be used in threat intelligence, incident investigation, and summarization.

Large language models (LLMs): Used in generative AI tools, this type of AI applies deep learning models trained on massively large data sets to understand, summarize, and generate new content. The integrity of the output depends upon the quality of the data on which the AI was trained.

Unsupervised machine learning: Continuously learns from raw, unstructured data to identify deviations that represent true anomalies. With the correct models, this AI can use anomaly-based detections to identify all kinds of cyber-attacks, including entirely unknown and novel ones.

How AI enhances OT security

Behavioral Analysis Through Machine Learning: AI can analyze vast amounts of data (millions of security events) and detect patterns, enhancing the ability to prevent cyber-attacks and improve response times compared to traditional methods. 

Monitoring and Optimizing Industrial Processes: AI can predict maintenance needs and help avoid equipment failures that lead to unscheduled production downtimes, thereby preventing substantial losses. 

Automation of Security Tasks: AI can automate tasks such as network monitoring, security patching, asset identification, and updating firewall rules. This not only improves efficiency but also allows security analysts to focus on more complex and strategic tasks.

Behavioral Analysis Through Machine Learning: AI can analyze vast amounts of data (millions of security events) and detect patterns, enhancing the ability to prevent cyber-attacks and improve response times compared to traditional methods. 

Monitoring and Optimizing Industrial Processes: AI can predict maintenance needs and help avoid equipment failures that lead to unscheduled production downtimes, thereby preventing substantial losses. 

Automation of Security Tasks: AI can automate tasks such as network monitoring, security patching, asset identification, and updating firewall rules. This not only improves efficiency but also allows security analysts to focus on more complex and strategic tasks.

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Darktrace /OT is the most comprehensive security solution built specifically for critical infrastructure. It implements real time prevention, detection and response for operational technologies, natively covering industrial and enterprise environments with visibility of OT, IoT, and IT assets in unison. Using Self-Learning AI technology Darktrace/OT is the industry’s only OT security solution to scale bespoke risk management, threat detection, and response, catching threats that traverse network and cloud-connected IT systems to specialized OT assets across all levels of the Purdue Model.

Rather than relying on knowledge of past attacks, AI technology learns what is ‘normal’ for its environment, discovering previously unknown threats by detecting subtle shifts in behavior.

This gives engineering and security teams the confidence to evaluate workflows, maintain security posture, and effectively mitigate risks from a unified platform in less time.

Read more about Darktrace /OT in our solution brief here