The manufacturing sector is rife with unprotected Web of Issues (IoT) sensors and units, lots of them built-in into enterprises’ mission-critical methods. The ensuing gaps make operations know-how (OT) and knowledge know-how (IT) networks weak to devastating cyberattacks.

Visibility is vital. Shivan Mandalam, director of product administration for IoT safety at CrowdStrike, advised VentureBeat that “it’s important for organizations to eradicate blind spots related to unmanaged or unsupported legacy methods. With larger visibility and evaluation throughout IT and OT methods, safety groups can rapidly determine and tackle issues earlier than adversaries exploit them.”

Honeywell’s acquisition of Israel-based SCADAfence, a number one supplier of OT and IoT cybersecurity options, is only one instance of the manufacturing trade attempting to catch up, shut these gaps and defend towards growing numbers of ransomware assaults.

Manufacturing: An trade underneath siege

Something that stops a store ground from working can rapidly price a enterprise thousands and thousands of {dollars}. That’s why ransomware assaults on producers generate thousands and thousands in payouts. A whole bunch of producers pay ransomware calls for with out disclosing that reality to prospects.

Gartner predicts that the monetary influence of cyber-physical system (CPS) assaults will attain greater than $50 billion by 2023. Restoration from a typical manufacturing breach prices $2.8 million. Not solely that: Almost 9 in 10 producers which have suffered a ransomware assault or breach have additionally had their provide chains disrupted.

Honeywell acquires SCADAfence to shut the hole

Honeywell’s SCADAfence acquisition offers the manufacturing big “with extra know-how and experience that assist speed up our innovation roadmap … and assist quickly evolving buyer necessities,” Michael Ruiz, GM of Honeywell Cybersecurity Companies, mentioned in a current interview with VentureBeat.

The acquisition will ship an built-in platform to producers, course of industries and infrastructure suppliers at a time when assaults are escalating.

“SCADAfence is a perfect complement to Honeywell’s OT cybersecurity portfolio, and when mixed with the Honeywell Forge Cybersecurity+ suite, it permits us to offer an end-to-end answer with applicability to asset, website and enterprise throughout key Honeywell sectors,” mentioned Ruiz.

Key focus areas embrace asset discovery, menace detection and compliance administration, he advised VentureBeat. “Our plan is to have the SCADAfence product portfolio combine into the Honeywell Forge Cybersecurity+ suite inside Honeywell Related Enterprise, Honeywell’s fast-growing software program arm with a strategic give attention to digitalization, sustainability and OT cybersecurity SaaS choices and options.”

Constructing on course of evaluation and integration experience

Recognized for its course of evaluation and integration experience, Honeywell is concentrating on the way it can take advantage of its strengths in these areas and obtain scale rapidly with the brand new acquisition.

“This integration will allow Honeywell to offer an end-to-end enterprise OT cybersecurity answer to website managers, operations administration and CISOs searching for enterprise safety administration and situational consciousness,” mentioned Ruiz.

SCADAfence CEO Elad Ben Meir additionally commented on the synergies between the businesses. “We’re thrilled to affix Honeywell as we work in direction of fulfilling our mission of empowering industrial organizations to function securely, reliably and effectively,” Ben Meir mentioned in a press launch. “This mixture creates a big alternative for progress, permitting us to mix our top-tier OT cybersecurity merchandise with one of many world’s main corporations in industrial software program.”

The deal expands Honeywell’s cybersecurity middle of excellence in Tel Aviv, the place SCADAfence is headquartered. Ruiz advised VentureBeat that one of the vital priceless elements of the acquisition is that Honeywell will be capable to “almost double our analysis and growth for OT cybersecurity, most likely changing into one of many bigger OT cybersecurity analysis and growth organizations on the market.”

Why Honeywell moved to amass SCADAfence

The IBM Safety X-Power Menace Intelligence Index discovered that manufacturing is probably the most attacked trade worldwide: The sector accounted for 23% of all ransomware assaults final 12 months. Greater than six in 10 breach makes an attempt on producers first focused OT methods important to manufacturing operations.

Analysis agency Dragos predicts that ransomware assaults on industrial organizations will speed up this 12 months. Dragos’ most up-to-date Industrial Ransomware Assault Evaluation from Q2 2023 discovered that 47.5% of ransomware assaults tracked globally impacted industrial organizations and infrastructure in North America, a rise of 27% during the last quarter.

All advised, seven out of 10 ransomware assaults in Q2 have been geared toward manufacturing, adopted by the economic management methods (ICS) gear and engineering sector, which accounted for 16% of assaults.

The fast rise in Fileless malware assaults displays this development. Fileless malware is designed to evade detection by cloaking its presence utilizing official instruments. Kurt Baker, senior director of product advertising for CrowdStrike Falcon Intelligence, writes that “fileless malware is a kind of malicious exercise that makes use of native, official instruments constructed right into a system to execute a cyber-attack. Not like conventional malware, fileless malware doesn’t require an attacker to put in any code on a goal’s system, making it laborious to detect. This fileless strategy of utilizing native instruments to conduct a malicious assault is generally known as residing off the land or LOLbins.”

Closing OT/IoT blind spots

Safety suppliers are upping their video games.

Final 12 months at Fal.Con 2022, CrowdStrike augmented Falcon Perception, launching Falcon Perception XDR and Falcon Uncover for IoT that focus on safety gaps in and between industrial management methods (ICSs).

Ivanti, for its half, has efficiently launched 4 options for IoT safety: Ivanti Neurons for RBVM, Ivanti Neurons for UEM, Ivanti Neurons for Healthcare — which helps the Web of Medical Issues (IoMT) — and Ivanti Neurons for IIoT primarily based on the corporate’s Wavelink acquisition, which secures Industrial Web of Issues (IIoT) networks.

Different main suppliers providing IoT cybersecurity options embrace AirGap Networks, Absolute Software program, Armis, Broadcom, Cisco, CradlePoint, CrowdStrike, Entrust, Forescout, Fortinet, Ivanti, JFrog and Rapid7.

AI and cybersecurity

Airgap Networks has created one of the vital revolutionary approaches to closing the OT-IT hole. Its   Zero Belief Firewall (ZTFW) combines agentless microsegmentation, safe entry for important belongings and community and asset intelligence. Airgap’s distinctive method offers its prospects with the choice of absolutely segmenting legacy servers, ICS, IoT and personal 5G endpoints. The platform may combine right into a operating community with out brokers, {hardware} upgrades or main machine adjustments.

VentureBeat interviewed Ritesh Agrawal, CEO of Airgap Networks, instantly following its launch of ThreatGPT, the corporate’s ChatGPT integration with the Airgap Zero Belief Firewall. Agrawal advised VentureBeat: “As a result of ThreatGPT is absolutely built-in into the core of the ZTFW structure, our prospects can use all obtainable information to coach the fashions. I imagine we’re first to market with this.”

ThreatGPT makes use of graph databases and GPT-3 fashions to assist SecOps groups achieve new menace insights. The GPT-3 fashions analyze pure language queries and determine safety threats, whereas graph databases present contextual intelligence on endpoint visitors relationships.

Agrawal advised VentureBeat that, “IoT places loads of stress on enterprise safety maturity. Extending zero belief to IoT is tough as a result of the endpoints range, and the surroundings is dynamic and stuffed with legacy units.”

Requested how producers and different high-risk trade targets might get began, Agrawal suggested that “correct asset discovery, microsegmentation and id are nonetheless the precise reply, however find out how to deploy them with conventional options when most IoT units can’t settle for brokers? For this reason many enterprises embrace agentless cybersecurity like Airgap as the one workable structure for IoT and IoMT.”

By Louis Columbus

Initially revealed through: VentureBeat