IoT is clearly here to stay and its advantages are undeniable: More information means organizations can make better decisions to reach peak operational efficiency. But, as IoT expands, those benefits also come with an increased need for cybersecurity risk management. Data shows that IoT device breaches more than doubled in the first half of 2021 compared to the same time period in the previous year, hitting approximately 1.51 billion.
Cybersecurity in 2022: Keeping Your Data Secure
Because IoT is everywhere, even holiday buying guides have begun to warn of the potential cybersecurity impacts “smart” devices in homes can have. When you look at the risks in terms of critical infrastructure in manufacturing, industrial, and utility sectors, the impacts can be devastating, affecting clients and vendors up and down the supply chain and even threatening human life. Some experts are predicting that malicious actors will be able to cause human casualties through OT attacks by 2025, only three years from now.
While cybersecurity has been a watchword since before the birth of the Internet, most cybersecurity risk management has historically been considered the domain of IT. As we connect more and more seemingly innocuous items to the cloud and our servers, cybersecurity begins to encompass surprising areas of operations. A lot of the cybersecurity risks we anticipate in 2022 are due to the inherent nature of IoT, ICS monitoring, and open source software. Massive quantities of data from physical devices are sent to virtual environments to be managed and analyzed, leaving a broader attack surface for malicious actors to find vulnerabilities. The nature of OT also means many members of your team with job functions well outside of traditional IT roles are now on the front lines of cybersecurity risk management as they access data and make decisions based on that data.
In 2021, the U.S. got several glimpses into how malicious actors can affect the safety of large groups of people, really driving home the importance of cybersecurity in 2022. Two of the top examples included:
- A Florida water treatment facility breach allowed a hacker to increase chemicals in the water supply to dangerous levels
- A terrifying pipeline ransomware attack temporarily forced a shutdown of a critical fuel pipeline in the U.S. and left the ongoing impacts to supply for nearly a week
These statistics and examples of successful attacks are rightfully sobering and all industries should make sure they understand the lessons from past attacks. However, just as IoT comes with inherent security risks, it can also come with inherent security solutions.
Using Data Intelligence Tools in Cybersecurity Risk Management
All of the data generated by IoT requires analysis to be useful in decision-making and the vast quantities make traditional analysis cumbersome, time-consuming, and ineffective. Organizations that truly want to capitalize on IoT advantages are using software like Sightline EDM to replace spreadsheets when it comes to understanding their data. The good news is that effective cybersecurity risk management solutions leverage many of the same data intelligence tools that help you increase efficiency in your operations.
Anomaly Detection Can Identify and Isolate Threats
One of the foundational data analysis tools contained in software like Sightline EDM is data monitoring with anomaly detection and alerts. Using historical baselines and customized alerting algorithms, the system flags potential issues as they happen. Anomaly detection and alerting is hugely valuable in cybersecurity risk management because it allows for quick identification of potentially malicious activity.
SIAS, the joint Unisys and Sightline cybersecurity solution embedded in Sightline EDM, takes it a step farther by using customizable profiles geared to specific users in a Zero-Trust system. Zero-Trust means SIAS will automatically verify anything that tries to connect to your system—whether it originated from inside or outside your organization. Automated verification ensures only safe users have access and also means potentially bad actors can be automatically locked out of the system when an anomaly is detected, effectively limiting damage while your team assesses the situation.
Root Cause Analysis
After an anomaly is detected, your team is alerted, and the malicious user is contained; the next step is to figure out what happened. Sightline EDM’s advanced correlation engine quickly identifies root causes of all anomalies—including those related to cybersecurity—giving you fast insight into risks and vulnerabilities and where to focus your cybersecurity risk management efforts. Data intelligence tools make root cause identification so quick that, frequently, by the time you see the alert, there’s already additional information on where the anomaly originated. This is important because the longer it takes to identify the root cause of an issue, the longer it takes to patch a vulnerability that can be exploited.
Predictive Analytics and Forecasting
Just like with streamlining business operations, cybersecurity risk management is much easier if you can detect an issue before it arises instead of after. Automated root cause analysis with machine learning and predictive analytics means not only diagnosing problems in real-time but getting an increasingly accurate forecast of potential issues, so you can address vulnerabilities before they are exploited.
Built-In Cybersecurity Risk Management
Most members of your team are probably not experts in data intelligence tools or cybersecurity risk management. That’s why Sightline EDM offers SIAS with multiple layers of fully integrated security throughout the software. At the same time Sightline EDM is keeping you up to date on the status of your operations, offering forecasts, and visualizing your data for quick insights; it is scanning for threats, isolating potentially malicious users, identifying root causes, and using machine learning and AI to make continuous improvements in predictions as more data becomes available. These data intelligence tools combined with the Unisys Stealth Zero technology, create SIAS, a seamless cybersecurity risk management tool that improves your IoT device security across all facilities. With SIAS, you can expect:
- Secure real-time data collection and monitoring through encryption of all data components during transit
- Endpoint cloaking to keep data contained in your system safe
- Dynamic isolation of potential threats
- Information security through cryptographic zones where data contained within that zone is encrypted
- The ability to manage the access of each user on Sightline EDM and limit each person only to functions they need to perform their duties
Make Data Intelligence Tools Work for You
Instantly schedule a no-hassle conversation with one of our solutions experts to discuss how Sightline EDM and SIAS can protect your organization by automating large portions of your OT cybersecurity risk management in 2022. Book a Conversation.
FAQs:
– A Florida water treatment facility breach allowed a hacker to increase chemicals in the water supply to dangerous levels
– A terrifying pipeline ransomware attack temporarily forced a shutdown of a critical fuel pipeline in the U.S. and left the ongoing impacts to supply for nearly a week
Data intelligence tools make root cause identification so quick that, frequently, by the time you see the alert, there’s already additional information on where the anomaly originated. This is important because the longer it takes to identify the root cause of an issue, the longer it takes to patch a vulnerability that can be exploited.
– Secure real-time data collection and monitoring through encryption of all data components during transit
– Endpoint cloaking to keep data contained in your system safe
– Dynamic isolation of potential threats
– Information security through cryptographic zones where data contained within that zone is encrypted
– The ability to manage the access of each user on Sightline EDM and limit each person only to functions they need to perform their duties