4 Months to a Secure OT Environment: A Practical Guide
The prospect of implementing robust cybersecurity measures in a complex industrial environment can seem daunting. However, it doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task. The Claroty + Copia whitepaper provides a clear and actionable 4-month plan to help you get started on your journey to a secure OT environment.
The 4-Step Plan
This plan outlines four key phases, each building upon the previous one to create a comprehensive cybersecurity foundation:
Month 1: Establish Visibility & Control
- Asset Discovery: Begin by gaining a complete understanding of your OT environment. Use Claroty’s deep visibility solutions to conduct a thorough inventory of all assets, including their configurations and vulnerabilities.
- Risk Assessment: Once you have a clear picture of your assets, identify, assess, and prioritize cybersecurity risks based on asset criticality and vulnerabilities.
- Implement Backup Solutions: Deploy robust backup and recovery solutions for critical OT data and systems to ensure business continuity in the event of a cyberattack or system failure.
Month 2: Secure the Network
- Network Segmentation: Segment your OT network to isolate critical systems and limit the lateral movement of attackers in the event of a breach. This helps contain the impact of an attack and prevent it from spreading throughout your environment.
- Access Control: Enforce strict access controls and authentication mechanisms to prevent unauthorized access to OT systems. This ensures that only authorized personnel can access and modify critical systems.
- Vulnerability Management: Patch and remediate vulnerabilities in OT systems, prioritizing those with the highest risk. This helps reduce your attack surface and protect against known exploits.
Month 3: Strengthen Security Posture
- Continuous Monitoring & Threat Detection: Deploy solutions, such as Claroty’s Continuous Threat Detection (CTD), to continuously monitor and detect cyber threats in real-time. This enables you to identify and respond to suspicious activity quickly, minimizing the impact of an attack.
- Secure Remote Access: Implement secure remote access solutions to enable authorized personnel to connect to and manage OT systems without compromising security. This allows for remote support and maintenance while maintaining a strong security posture.
Month 4: Embrace Industrial DevOps
- Backup & Configuration Management: Use a platform such as Copia to back up OT code automatically, keep every version under change control, and hold a known-good state ready to restore. This helps prevent unauthorized changes and ensures that all modifications are tracked and documented.
- Automated Testing: Employ automated testing procedures to confirm that code changes do not introduce new vulnerabilities or disrupt operations. This helps ensure the stability and reliability of your OT systems.
- Collaboration & Training: Foster collaboration between IT and OT teams and provide ongoing training and education on cybersecurity best practices. This creates a culture of shared responsibility and ensures that everyone is aware of the importance of cybersecurity.
This 4-month plan provides a roadmap to enhance your cybersecurity posture and protect your critical infrastructure. To get a detailed breakdown of each step and learn how to implement it in your organization, view our recent partner webinar with Claroty here.
