The Asia 2022 Operational Technology Cybersecurity Report reveals that gaps in Operational Technology (OT) cybersecurity are leading to real-world impact on business, IP and safety.
Among OT organisations in Hong Kong that participated in the study, 86% said they had experienced an intrusion in the past 12 months.
A further 56% acknowledged their productivity was affected due to an operation outage brought by intrusions and only 12% have achieved centralised visibility of all OT activities. The report also uncovered widespread gaps in industrial security and opportunities for improvements.
“Given the expanding attack surface exacerbated by convergence of IT and OT, a security fabric is essential to achieve a secure OT environment with compliance,” called out Cherry Fung, regional director of Hong Kong, Macau & Mongolia at Fortinet.
Other findings for Hong Kong
- OT activities lack centralised visibility, increasing security risks. The report found that only 12% of Hong Kong respondents have achieved centralised visibility of all OT activities.
Additionally, 64% of Hong Kong organisations expressed high levels of concern regarding ransomware in OT environments. The report indicates that the lack of centralised visibility contributes to organisations’ OT security risks and weakened security posture. - OT security intrusions significantly impact organisations’ productivity and their bottom line. The top 3 intrusion types that Hong Kong organisations have experienced were phishing emails, malware and mobile security breaches.
As a result of these intrusions, 56% of surveyed organisations suffered an operation outage that affected productivity. 86% took at least several hours to return to service while 21% even took days to recover. Additionally, one-third of Hong Kong respondents saw revenue, data loss, compliance and brand value impacted following security intrusions. - Ownership of OT security is not consistent across organisations. According to the Fortinet report, OT security management falls within a range of primarily director or manager roles, ranging from the director of Plant Operations to the manager of Manufacturing Operations. 38% of surveyed respondents from Hong Kong say that the CISO holds the responsibility for OT security at their organisation.
- OT security is gradually improving, but security gaps still exist in many organisations. When asked about the maturity of their organisation’s OT security posture, 32% of Hong Kong organisations have reached level 4, meaning that cybersecurity processes are continually improved via feedback form existing processes, including optimizing. This is higher than the average levels of APAC.
An overwhelming 96% of OT organisations in Hong Kong have between 1,000 – 10,000 IP-enabled OT devices in operations, adding complexity. Local organisations face challenges with using multiple OT security tools, further creating gaps in their security posture.
OT security is a corporate-level concern
As OT systems increasingly become targets for cybercriminals, C-level leaders recognize the importance of securing these environments to mitigate risks to their organisations. Industrial systems have become a significant risk factor as IT and corporate networks become ‘universally’ integrated, cited the report.
With industrial systems now being connected to the internet and more accessible from anywhere, organisations’ attack surface is increasing significantly.
With the IT threat landscape becoming more sophisticated, connected OT systems have also become vulnerable to these growing threats. This combination of factors is moving industrial security upward in many organisations’ risk portfolios. OT security is a growing concern for executive leaders, increasing the need for organisations to move toward full protection of their industrial control system (ICS) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems.
How to overcome OT security challenges
Recommendations for addressing OT security challenges include:
- Establish Zero Trust Access to prevent breaches. With more industrial systems being connected to the network, Zero Trust Access solutions ensure that any user, device or application without proper credentials and permissions is denied access to critical assets. To advance OT security efforts, Zero Trust Access solutions can further defend against both internal and external threats.
- Implementing solutions that provide centralised visibility of OT activities. Centralised, end-to-end visibility of all OT activities is key to ensuring organisations strengthen their security posture. The report noted that top-tier organisations – which make up the 6% of respondents who reported no intrusions in the past year – were more than three times as likely to have achieved centralised visibility than their counterparts who suffered intrusions.
- Consolidating security tools and vendors to integrate across environments. To remove complexity and help achieve centralised visibility of all devices, organisations should look to integrate their OT and IT technology across a smaller number of vendors. By implementing integrated security solutions, organisations can reduce their attack surface and improve their security posture.
- Deploying network access control (NAC) technology. Organisations that avoided intrusions in the past year were more likely to have a NAC in place, ensuring that only authorized individuals can access specific systems critical for securing digital assets.
