Where cyber security for IT has traditionally been concerned with information confidentiality, integrity and availability, Operational Technology priorities are often safety, reliability, and availability, as there are clearly physical dangers associated with Operational Technology failure or malfunction. Information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT), with the adoption of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), are rapidly changing and converging. As they evolve, hackers search for new attack vectors and new attack surfaces to compromise.
Our Operational Technology Service identifies, analyses cyber risk exposure, and helps you ensure that the security controls you choose are appropriate to the risks your organisation faces. Our OT Security Architecture Assessment analyses the security abstract of your Operational Technology architecture design from a Cyber Kill Chain basis and provides an in depth, expert-led assessment of your Industrial Control Systems. Leveraging Cyber Smart Associate’s’ view of proprietary & industry best practices, the assessment outlines and guides actionable next steps to improve your security.
OT is defined as technology that interfaces with the physical world and includes Industrial Control Systems (ICS), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) and Distributed Control Systems (DCS). Industrial control systems (ICS) is a major segment within the operational technology industry. It comprises systems that are used to monitor and control industrial processes. This could be mine site conveyor belts, oil refinery cracking towers, power consumption on electricity grids or alarms from building information systems. ICSs are typically mission-critical applications with a high-availability requirement.
Most ICSs fall into either a continuous process control system, typically managed via programmable logic controllers (PLCs), or discrete process control systems (DPC), that might use a PLC or some other batch process control device. Industrial control systems (ICS) are often managed via a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems that provides a graphical user interface for operators to easily observe the status of a system, receive any alarms indicating out-of-band operation, or to enter system adjustments to manage the process under control.
The main components are:
The OT Security Architecture Assessment takes a holistic approach to assessing the security design of your operational technology and based on your unique business context provides an in depth, expert-led assessment of your Industrial Control Systems. Leveraging Cyber Smart Associate’s’ view of proprietary & industry best practices, the assessment outlines and guides actionable next steps to improve your security.
Gain independent assurance by measuring security effectiveness.
Determine areas of risk measured against contextualised potential business impact.
Partner with security experts who provide trusted guidance to improve security.
Inform more effective operations, architecture, strategy built on prioritised guidance.
During a Client engagement our Consultants pass through six key phases that form the anatomy of how we manage a typical consulting project. We appreciate every assignment is different, so we have flexible processes in place to bring our experts onboard quickly and effectively without disrupting existing work programmes. We are happy to provide our services at any stage of the lifecycle.
We deliver security capability at all levels of an organisation and are on hand to help ensure that your projects deliver solutions
that are appropriately aligned to your cyber security risk position and satisfy your regulatory compliance requirements.
Learn more about how we can help you achieve your critical priorities: