Page 68 - Cyber Defense eMagazine forJune 2021

Establishing Your ICS (Industrial Control Systems)

Security Action Plan – Getting Started Guide
Understand what action you need to take to get your ICS Security strategy off and running

By Dirk Schrader, Global Vice President of Security Research, New Net Technologies
(NNT)

Major trends in Industry 4.0, Smart Factories, or Digitalization promise significant benefits to those
following them. According to a recent Gartner analysis, 60% of all organizations trying to reap these
benefits are still in the very early stage of becoming aware of the needs and issues related to ICS Security.
As such, there is now a requirement to develop a cyber security plan for Operational Technology
(sometimes also named cyber-physical systems). This post tries to address that need and related issues
in a structured manner using the familiar PDCA cycle approach. The reason for doing so is quite simple
and – in fact – the first important thing to accept: ICS Security is never done, never is there a ‘mission
accomplished’. The basic elements of Industrial Control, of Operational Technology, the threats to it, the
way an organization uses its cyber-physical assets to generate its added value, all these elements are
constantly changing and evolving. Therefore, your ICS Security is a cyclical management task. A task
that can be structured, mapped, and executed as the following sections describe.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – June 2021 Edition 68
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