Operational Technology surrounds and affects our lives in many obvious and hidden ways; automatically monitoring safe, reliable production and replacing highly manual repetitive tasks. Critical to Operational Technology are warning safety systems that alert operators when something is going wrong, or a critical event is about to happen.
Operational Technology (OT) is the use of hardware and software to monitor and control physical processes, devices, and infrastructure. Modern day life depends on the smooth running of OT, from power production, to traffic light management, street lighting, food production, manufacturing and chemical production.
OT priorities are often safety, reliability and availability, as there are clearly physical dangers associated with OT failure or malfunction. With the world continuing to strive for more automation, advancing inter-connectivity and further efficiencies, there is an increased convergence of enterprise digital technologies with operational technologies.
This convergence of technologies has led to increased and new security vulnerabilities where traditional corporate IT security tools are not able to provide appropriate safeguarding measures. These corporate tools were never designed to protect interfaces in the physical world like Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), Industrial Control Systems (ICS), and Distributed Control Systems (DCS). Organisations are becoming exposed to new security risks.
Cyber attacks on Industrial companies can cause risks to income, health and safety and to the security of their intellectual property. Chemicals, gas and other materials used in the industrial sector are volatile and if a vital machine is shut down due to a cyber attack, then human lives can be at risk. The shut down of machines can also put a halt to production, meaning orders are not fulfilled and the company may lose money and customers.
Where other IT cyber security solutions only provide visibility and detection, we have developed an integrated OT cyber security protection platform backed by an experienced managed services team that stops OT cyber threats in their tracks. Making this the first integrated cyber-protection platform for complete visibility, segmentation, protection, and monitoring.
To see more about how Fundamentals First can help protect your business, visit our website and read more on the protection we can provide.
