Within the SANS State of ICS/OT Cybersecurity 2024 report, 530 professionals working in essential infrastructure sectors had been requested which applied sciences they’ve of their OT environments and what they had been planning so as to add within the subsequent 12 months and a half. The 2 lists spotlight which applied sciences are extensively deployed and what areas safety groups are going to concentrate on subsequent.
As for applied sciences at present in use, entry controls (81%); backup and restoration instruments (74.4%); endpoint detection and response instruments reminiscent of conventional antivirus (73%); implementing segmentation between management techniques and better threat networks (66%); and securing distant entry by deploying multi-factor authentication (65%) had been the highest 5. These classes have seen “large jumps in implementation,” SANS mentioned within the report. Simply 53% of respondents reported utilizing EDR in 2019, which comes out to a 20% improve in 2024.
“We frequently describe ICS/OT because the ‘M&M’ mannequin: laborious shell, gooey middle. For this reason we focus quite a bit on IT–OT boundaries (i.e., the laborious shell),” the report mentioned. “Nevertheless, safety professionals have to additionally concentrate on toughening up that gooey middle.”
Securing that “gooey middle” could also be one of many causes for a shift suggesting extra non-technology spending, reminiscent of in coaching, simulations, and incident response. When requested what new applied sciences or options are deliberate for the following 18 months, the 5 most-planned actions had been: implementing ICS-specific cybersecurity metrics or dashboards (37%); deploying ICS community safety monitoring and anomaly detection (33%); rolling out management system enhancements and upgrades (32%); conducting ICS-specific cybersecurity coaching (31%); and working ICS-specific incident response tabletops or simulations (30%).
Aside from cybersecurity metrics and dashboards, these deliberate applied sciences are already in use by almost half of the respondents. The truth that over 30% extra are planning to make use of them counsel the business is getting ready to one other soar in implementation in these areas.
It is price noting that the three least deployed applied sciences for ICS protection had a “”urprisingly” bigger variety of respondents planning to put money into them over the following 12 months and a half. Roughly 1 / 4 of respondents have deployed the next applied sciences and options right now: software program invoice of supplies (25%); industrial cloud safety (26%); and safety orchestration, automation, and response (28%). The next than common variety of respondents have plans to begin utilizing SBOM (28%), industrial management safety (23%), and SOAR (30%).
The deliberate charges point out these applied sciences might develop into extra widespread throughout ICS safety packages toon, SANS mentioned.