Page 109 - Cyber Defense eMagazine June 2020 Edition

How to Secure IT And OT In Industrial and Manufacturing

Environments

By Christopher Dobrec, Vice President of Product Marketing at Armis

Operational Technology (OT) systems, which include critical infrastructure, are increasingly becoming
more exposed to cyber attacks. The control and telemetry systems used in industrial plants and
manufacturing environments are being connected to traditional enterprise IT networks like Ethernet or
Wi-Fi. Meanwhile, device manufacturers are building OT devices and control systems on top of common
operating systems such as Windows, Linux, Android, and VxWorks.

Compounding this issue is the fact that traditional consumer-centric connected devices are being brought
into industrial and manufacturing environments. For example, as Ford starts to consider how
manufacturing workers can return to plants following the COVID-19 impact, it’s testing wearable devices
that would buzz when employees are closer than 6 feet apart.

These developments make control systems vulnerable to the same kind of attacks used to compromise
devices on corporate IT networks. Recent attacks on industrial control systems (ICS) and OT
environments illustrate the damage that these threats are already having. WannaCry and NotPetya

Cyber Defense eMagazine –June 2020 Edition 109
Copyright © 2020, Cyber Defense Magazine. All rights reserved worldwide.