Industrial customers are demanding security solutions from their Operational Technology (OT) vendors due to the increasing number of security breaches and the risks associated with them. According to Trend Micro’s 2022 Industrial Cybersecurity report, industrial customers were disrupted at least six times in the past year, at an average cost of $2.8 million per incident. This has led to a tangible financial and reputational impact on businesses. OT equipment vendors need to respond to customer demand for better security while still delivering competitively priced solutions.

The top drivers leading to customer action are:

1. Security audits and penetration tests revealing vulnerabilities,
2. Experience with a recent breach leading to a board mandate to prevent future incidents,
3. Requests from customers and partners, and
4. Incidents at competitor sites.

PKI offers a cost-effective and scalable answer to these demands. OT OEMs can add a secure public key infrastructure (PKI) feature to their OT devices and upstream management servers. This will address the three fundamental issues causing the majority of incidents:

1. Authentication for secure network access. By issuing unique identities in the form of digital certificates for every device it possible to authenticate them every time they request network access.
2. Secure machine-to-machine communications. PKI helps safeguard data by providing end-to-end data encryption. This helps ensure the data stored in OT systems and the communication between IT and OT systems remain insulated from attacks. Encrypting communications also helps meet compliance requirements. Regulatory bodies, such as the NERC, FERC, NIST, and U.S. President Biden’s recent executive order on cybersecurity all require encryption.
3. Data and Software integrity. Ensuring the firmware in OT systems is safe and free of corruption is crucial to avoid software supply chain attacks. PKI provides an effective means of verifying firmware authenticity and integrity through code signing. OT firmware suppliers can use PKI to digitally sign the firmware they are releasing to help organizations verify the identity of the supplier and confirm that the received firmware hasn’t been altered since its signing. This enables secure boot and protects OT systems from attacks.

PKI is highly flexible, time-tested over decades of use, and standardized for maximum security and interoperability.

SecureG provides a custom PKI system that that are purpose built for OEM OT systems. It delivers unique identities, securing the OT environment by putting identity-based security in every OT node. PKI is a must-have for securing operational technology, and it is cost-effective and flexible. Contact SecureG for more information on how a PKI can help you meet industrial customer demands for security.