MAY: Segmentation and Remote Access
The OT electronic security perimeter you reviewed and improved last month is essential to stop the volume of potential attacks coming from IT and other untrusted networks. This month you will further restrict attack access to OT cyber assets with a closer look at the OT DMZ and internal segmentation. Like most security controls, there are some locations where a simple control can significantly reduce risk.
In May you will also review your OT secure remote access to make sure you’ve put in a key control that even US Senators know about.
Week 18: Evaluate And Improve Your OT DMZ
De-militarized zones (DMZ), semi-trusted zones, are a common electronic security perimeter good practice. The firewall segmenting IT from the Internet will often have one or more DMZ to limit direct Internet to IT network communication. A web server, database...
Week 19: Does Your OT Remote Access Require Multi-Factor Authentication?
Most of the targeted, OT specific attacks, where the adversary has lived on the OT for many months, began with a compromise of remote access to OT. The limited OT cyber incident data we have clearly shows that multi-factor authentication (MFA) for OT remote access is...
Week 20: Is Your OT Remote Access Necessary And Worth The Risk?
Now that your OT remote access is secured, determine if the allowed remote access is necessary. Ideally user interactive remote access to OT for the purpose of performing control or administration should be rare. If this is the case, consider if it’s feasible to have...
Week 21: Securing Cloud Service Access To OT
Predictive maintenance, efficiency studies and controls, security monitoring, and other cloud services can offer real benefits to asset owners. This trend of vendors offering, and asset owners using, cloud services is almost certain to increase. The challenge is to...
Week 22: Internal Segmentation Review
Your task this week will vary based on the type of system you operate. Asset owners with SCADA have more work this week. SCADA Systems SCADA systems monitoring and controlling geographically dispersed systems, such as pipelines, electric grids, and water delivery,...