Industrial Cyber Security is Just as Important as Securing Information Systems

Massive data breaches are what grab headlines, but industrial cyber security attacks can be devastating in the real world. Tesla has just learned this lesson the hard way. CEO Elon Musk has accused a malicious company insider of altering product code, stealing data and exporting it to third parties – and possibly even causing a factory fire. According to an internal email obtained by CNBC, Musk stated that the employee made “direct code changes to the Tesla Manufacturing Operating System under false usernames and export[ed] large amounts of highly sensitive Tesla data to unknown third parties.” The employee allegedly admitted that he sabotaged the company’s systems because “he wanted a promotion that he did not receive.”

According to the email, Tesla has not determined if the employee acted alone or in conjunction with other disgruntled insiders or outside hackers.

IT-OT Convergence Necessitates Stronger Industrial Cyber Security

Although attacks on industrial systems – the “behind-the-scenes” technology that powers factories, mining operations, and critical infrastructure such as utilities, healthcare facilities, and transportation networks – are rapidly escalating, industrial cyber security remains, at best, an afterthought. Many industrial organizations focus their security efforts on their information technology (IT) and give little thought to their operational technology (OT) other than possibly air-gapping their OT systems.

For many years, air-gapping worked. Industrial networks enjoyed “security by isolation” and “security by obscurity.” Many industrial organizations, especially utility companies, employ equipment that is literally decades old; it was built before the internet as we know it today existed and was developed for reliability and safety, not cyber security.

However, the advent of the internet and the convergence of IT and OT have negated both security by isolation and security by obscurity. While OT systems once ran on simple, isolated, point-to-point networks with proprietary communication tools, they are now connected to enterprise networks, with open protocols such as the Ethernet and Internet protocol (IP). Additionally, OT networks are frequently connected to each other and, at least to some extent, to enterprise IT systems. Even allegedly “air-gapped” OT systems are accessible via USB drives or Bluetooth.

Industrial Equipment Needs Industrial Cyber Security

Some organizations attempt to apply the same cyber security principles that they use on their IT systems to their industrial equipment. This is entirely wrong. While there are some similarities, securing industrial networks is quite different than securing IT networks. OT and IT employees are often siloed from each other; many IT employees, even those with many years of experience, are wholly unfamiliar with the highly specialized equipment and procedures on the OT side. The two sides also have different concerns, especially regarding reliability and safety.

Unlike IT equipment, which processes, stores, and transmits data, OT equipment controls industrial processes that impact the real world. Hackers who breach IT systems can do things like steal data or crash ordering systems. Although these attacks are quite damaging in their own right, attacks on OT systems could destroy industrial equipment or cause it to malfunction, potentially putting human life and safety at risk – as in the Tesla factory fire. Some security experts have pointed out that it could have been worse; a breach of Tesla’s industrial systems could allow hackers to alter the firmware in the company’s cars, perhaps with deadly consequences.

Realizing the unique requirements of industrial cyber security, NIST developed SP 800-82, Guide to Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Security. SP 800-82 is “intended to help pipeline operators, power producers, manufacturers, air traffic control centers and other managers of critical infrastructures to secure their systems while addressing their unique performance, reliability, and safety requirements.” It references ISA/IEC-62443, a common set of standards for industrial control systems.

The threats to industrial cyber security are real and growing. It is imperative that organizations put the proper technologies and processes in place to protect their equipment, employees, and the public at large.

The cyber security experts at Continuum GRC have deep knowledge of the cyber security field, are continually monitoring the latest information security threats, and are committed to protecting your organization from security breaches. Continuum GRC offers full-service and in-house risk assessment and risk management subscriptions, and we help companies all around the world sustain proactive cyber security programs.

Continuum GRC is proactive cyber security®. Call 1-888-896-6207 to discuss your organization’s cyber security needs and find out how we can help your organization protect its systems and ensure compliance.

Air gapping is no longer a viable solution for ICS security.

There has never been a power outage in the U.S. due to a cyber attack, but it happened in Ukraine over the Christmas holidays in 2015, and there have been attempts to breach U.S. power companies and hack the power grid.

In March, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued an alert regarding a “multi-stage intrusion campaign by Russian government cyber actors who targeted small commercial facilities’ networks where they staged malware, conducted spear phishing, and gained remote access into energy sector networks.” The alert went on to say that “After obtaining access, the Russian government cyber actors conducted network reconnaissance, moved laterally, and collected information pertaining to Industrial Control Systems (ICS).”

ICS security was back in the headlines last week, after the U.S. Department of Energy made public a report from August 2017 outlining a half-dozen “capability gaps” in the ability of the U.S. power sector to respond to a cyber attack.

For decades, the first line of cyber defense for the SCADA and other industrial control systems that run the nation’s power grid (and are also used by water utilities, oil and gas companies, and in transportation networks) was “security by isolation,” also known as air gapping. Because these systems were isolated both from the internet and internal enterprise networks, the logic went, they could not be hacked. This was sound logic in pre-internet days and even in the early days of the internet, but not in our hyper-connected, always-on, digital world. Now, the air gap is arguably the biggest myth of ICS security.

Most Air Gaps Have … Gaps

A truly air-gapped device is completely isolated from the outside world. In addition to no internet or intranet, the device is not accessible by Bluetooth, WiFi, or routable IPs. USB ports are locked down, and physical access is strictly controlled. Such a setup rarely exists in nature. Often, network audits discover “off-grid” remote connections the security staff didn’t know about. Usually, these were installed by employees or vendors for purposes of remote monitoring, repair, and troubleshooting, but they’re still outside connections.

Air Gapping Can Promote a False Sense of ICS Security

Even if a system is properly air gapped, it is not impenetrable. As the Stuxnet attack proved, air gapping does not protect against insider threats. It also doesn’t protect against compromised software updates or hardware.

IT & OT Are Converging

In an always-on digital world where information technology (IT) is converging with operational technology (OT), air gapping poses a significant opportunity cost. Organizations that air gap their ICS and other OT systems are foregoing the valuable process data those systems generate: data that provides actionable intelligence that could be used to optimize equipment, improve safety, reduce environmental impacts, and cut costs. Because air gapped systems cannot be accessed remotely, repairs and routine maintenance are time-consuming and costly, and the lack of visibility into the system hampers your ability to respond to problems.

Instead of depending on air gapping, utilities and other organizations that use ICS or other operational technologies should adopt a layered approach to cyber security. A secure network architecture, combined with technologies that were specifically designed for ICS security purposes, provides much better cyber security while allowing organizations to take advantage of the IIoT and other innovative digital technologies.

The cyber security experts at Continuum GRC have deep knowledge of the cyber security field, are continually monitoring the latest information security threats, and are committed to protecting your organization from security breaches. Continuum GRC offers full-service and in-house risk assessment and risk management subscriptions, and we help companies all around the world sustain proactive cyber security programs.

Continuum GRC is proactive cyber security®. Call 1-888-896-6207 to discuss your organization’s cyber security needs and find out how we can help your organization protect its systems and ensure compliance.

Spreadsheets Are Not GRC Tools

Despite the availability of modern GRC tools, many organizations still use spreadsheets to conduct IT compliance audits and other GRC activities. While spreadsheets are highly useful for many business functions, especially accounting, they are not GRC tools. Depending on spreadsheets to manage GRC processes is time-consuming, costly, and inefficient at best, dangerous to your GRC and cyber security efforts at worst. Here are six reasons why your enterprise should stop using spreadsheets as GRC tools.

They Aren’t Databases

Spreadsheets are documents; they are not databases. Among other limitations, spreadsheets have no data integrity, no referential integrity, and no way to create and maintain relationships between data in other files. They do not scale well, and their data analysis and reporting capabilities are quite limited. Unlike modern GRC tools, spreadsheets do not automatically generate the complex reports required for IT compliance audits.

They Are Difficult and Time-Consuming to Manage

It is highly unlikely you’ll be able to keep all of your GRC information in one file; you’ll need to have multiple spreadsheets, and probably some Word documents as well. Searching for information in multiple files is a logistical nightmare. Want to add a field, row, or column? You’ll need to do that manually, in every file, plus manually update every affected record. Forget about creating relationships between data in different files, exporting your audit data to other programs, or archiving information. GRC tools automate all of these functions, but spreadsheets and word processing documents require manual editing.

They Don’t Provide Audit Trails

Secure audit trails are critical to the integrated risk management approach that modern enterprises are embracing to support their governance, risk, compliance, and cyber security processes. Spreadsheets don’t have audit trail functions; GRC tools do.

They Are Highly Insecure and Error-Prone

Spreadsheet software has limited security features. Individual files can be password-protected, but different users cannot be assigned different access levels. You can track who opened and saved a spreadsheet file and when, but you cannot tell what changes they made, if any. Both innocent mistakes and purposeful sabotage can go undetected for some time, and when you finally do figure out the problem, there is no way to trace who was responsible or when it occurred. Because spreadsheets require manual editing, the probability of a mistake being made is very high; it is estimated that nearly 90% of all business spreadsheets contain errors.

Collaboration is Difficult or Impossible

Modern GRC processes involve input from multiple stakeholders. If, somehow, you’ve managed to cram all of your GRC data into one giant spreadsheet, only one person can edit the document at a time. If your data is spread across multiple documents (the more likely scenario), any changes made to one document by one user need to be coordinated with all of the other users and duplicated in all of the other documents. This is a recipe for data loss, errors, important decisions being made based on faulty or incomplete data – and being found out of compliance.

Data Analysis Capabilities Are Very Limited

A robust GRC program is not centered around amassing just enough information to pass IT audits. You should be able to analyze all your data to glean actionable intelligence that can be used to improve both your GRC processes and your cyber security. Due to the inherent limitations of spreadsheets, including the lack of referential integrity and the inability to create relationships between data in different files, gleaning meaningful business and risk management insights from your data is difficult or impossible.

Now that modern GRC tools are available, such as Continuum GRC’s proprietary IT Audit Machine (ITAM), it’s time to ditch spreadsheets. Switching will not only simplify your GRC processes; it will also strengthen your enterprise cyber security and free up money, time, and human resources to innovate, create, and pursue long-term organizational goals. ITAM integrates IT governance, policy management, risk management, and incident management, empowering you to document and analyze IT risks, develop mitigation plans, define security controls, and manage ongoing risk assessments.

The cyber security experts at Continuum GRC have deep knowledge of the cyber security field, are continually monitoring the latest information security threats, and are committed to protecting your organization from security breaches. Continuum GRC offers full-service and in-house risk assessment and risk management subscriptions, and we help companies all around the world sustain proactive cyber security programs.

Continuum GRC is proactive cyber security®. Call 1-888-896-6207 to discuss your organization’s cyber security needs and find out how we can help your organization protect its systems and ensure compliance.