October was a busy month for our DYNICS team. From customer and partner meetings to cybersecurity conferences, our networking agenda not only kept our bags packed but provided us with a deeper understanding of what’s driving the latest initiatives, concerns, and questions in the industrial sector. Here are some of the key takeaways.
Growing Awareness
First and foremost, it is clear that people are increasingly recognizing the importance of securing manufacturing plants and critical infrastructure. With that, there also seems to be a rising awareness of the types of exposures that such settings can face. While we may not be at a 100% comprehension level yet, our guess is that we’re somewhere around 70%. For instance, many we encountered were up-to-date on the cyberattack that hit Clorox in August and subsequently impacted both production and the company’s stock.
In turn, there is a growing desire to implement solutions that are designed for IT systems as well as OT systems, which heavily make up manufacturing, industrial, and critical infrastructure facilities. We’ve noticed that more and more customers and brands are thinking about what is possible to integrate into their existing operations. This trend is evident in even larger initiatives such as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Security Agency (NSA), and U.S. Department of the Treasury’s recent release of a guidance on “Improving Security of Open Source Software (OSS) in Operational Technology (OT) and Industrial Control Systems (ICS).”
Pain Points
Despite expanding recognition, we frequently see the same recurring customer pain points. They mainly boil down to this overwhelming question – how do we protect and safeguard our manufacturing?” This brings us back to a point we made in our first industry insights. Most of the other tools out there are detect and response focused. What’s missing in that formula is protection, which is why the DYNICS mantra is protection first, powered by visibility and control. Before you know you’re vulnerable, we are protecting you against it, which gives you time to clean up your flaws. In one conversation that we had with an OT engineer, he shared that it is this time-saving aspect he values most about our approach.
There is also the ongoing challenge of new vulnerabilities constantly popping up. While conversing with a large data storage leader in Pittsburgh, they mentioned that they are now having to keep an eye on exposures that could potentially disrupt their center’s HVAC, power generation, and all of those operational tools to keep it running. In fact, an HVAC solutions provider to clients across fields such as education, government, and healthcare was affected by a cyberattack earlier in the month.
Moving Forward
Unfortunately, manufacturers getting hit with cyber incidents on a daily basis is a reality at this point. As awareness spikes, the key to moving forward is to provide organizations with the proper resources that equip them to handle matters proactively and without hesitancy.
Sources:
- “Clorox shares slide after company says cyberattack hit sales hard” – Drew Richardson, CNBC
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/05/clorox-shares-slide-cyberattack-hit-sales.html - “CISA, Government, and Industry Partners Publish Fact Sheet for Organizations Using Open Source Software” – Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Press Release
https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/cisa-government-and-industry-partners-publish-fact-sheet-organizations-using-open-source-software - “Johnson Controls Ransomware Attack Could Impact DHS” – Ionut Arghire, Security Week
https://www.securityweek.com/johnson-controls-ransomware-attack-could-impact-dhs/
