Building Proactive Defenses Against Advanced OT Threats

Building Proactive Defenses Against Advanced OT Threats

Fortinet
Published by: Research Desk Released: Jun 17, 2021

Industries that utilize operational technology (OT) are under pressure to maintain the highest levels of uptime, availability, and safety. This includes critical infrastructure (e.g., hydroelectric dams, nuclear power plants, oil and gas pipelines)—where a system failure can directly impact human lives or the environment. But as OT systems evolve to increasingly interact with information technology (IT) systems, this convergence is creating new pathways for bad actors to disrupt these sensitive environments. Plant managers and operations leaders are seeing an onslaught of attacks targeting OT systems. Some even use sophisticated techniques (e.g., agile development, polymorphism) that make it more difficult to identify, detect, and remediate attacks. To address these sorts of advanced threats, organizations need purpose-built OT security solutions to help them instantly prevent, detect, and respond to these threats—before downtime or critical damage can occur.