The necessity for strong cybersecurity to safeguard industrial operations and vital infrastructure has heightened as sectors undergo increasing digital transformation. Engaging with clients across various industries such as manufacturing, utilities, transportation, and energy, one recurrent aspect is the priority accorded to shielding their operational technology (OT). To better tackle the prevailing global threat landscape, businesses seek to integrate IT and OT cybersecurity efforts.
The recent acknowledgment of Cisco’s dedication to aiding organizations in digitalizing and fortifying their operational environments is noteworthy. It is with great pleasure that I announce that Forrester Research has identified Cisco as a front-runner in the OT security market in their latest publication, “The Forrester Wave™: Operational Technology Security Solutions, Q2 2024.”
While Cisco is widely renowned for its enterprise networking and cybersecurity solutions, the company has been instrumental in assisting industrial establishments worldwide in digitizing and securing their operations for more than two decades. This extensive experience has culminated in a profound comprehension of OT needs, a top-notch industrial networking portfolio, and an array of advanced cybersecurity capabilities. This combination is indeed exceptional, encapsulated in what we term Cisco Industrial Threat Defense.
The Forrester report highlights that “Cisco Industrial Threat Defense” is a holistic solution designed to safeguard, identify, and address threats across both IT and OT settings. Cisco envisions the network as the linchpin for securing OT on a large scale, a strategic approach considering the complexities linked with securing legacy industrial control devices.
Advocating for Cohesive IT and OT Security
Historically, OT security was often regarded as a distinct cybersecurity area necessitating management with isolated “point products”. As industrial entities commence deploying such solutions, they have come to realize the need for utilizing a majority of their IT cybersecurity tools to adequately shield the OT environment. Furthermore, detecting and neutralizing threats across different domains has emerged as a crucial requirement. With Splunk, we are crafting an all-encompassing and unified IT/OT cybersecurity platform to assist our clientele in overcoming these challenges. It is pleasing to witness Forrester awarding Cisco the utmost score in the vision aspect.
Cisco Industrial Threat Defense transcends the concept of a singular “point product” addressing a fraction of the OT security puzzle. It stands out as an encompassing, pre-integrated solution that effaces the traditional barriers that separate IT and OT security:
- Enhanced transparency spanning both IT and OT networks reinforced by the Splunk security platform in conjunction with Cisco XDR, fostering the correlation of events, expedited identification of advanced threats, and streamlined remediation across the entirety of their security framework.
- Leading-edge threat intelligence to stay abreast of the latest threats through Cisco Talos, one of the globe’s largest private cybersecurity research units.
- Thorough understanding of the industrial landscape enabled by Cisco Cyber Vision to evaluate the OT security status quo and empower security tools with OT context.
- Effective handling of OT vulnerabilities facilitated by Cisco Vulnerability Management, prioritizing patching with exploit data and predictive modeling.
- Guarding OT assets against malware, unauthorized USB usage, and malicious traffic with Cisco Secure Endpoint.
- Implementing Zero-Trust Network Access (ZTNA) for OT via Cisco Secure Equipment Access (SEA), streamlining and monitoring remote access from OT contractors and vendors.
- Automated and adaptive network segmenting supported by Cisco Secure Firewall and Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) to aid in containing security breaches.
- Enhanced control over outbound data from the industrial network to cloud resources through Cisco security service edge (SSE) and Umbrella.
- Certified design blueprints serving as the foundation for a solid architecture, simplifying the design and implementation of end-to-end OT security solutions.
- Tailored services assisting in orchestrating, deploying, and managing the optimal IT/OT security architecture tailored to your requirements, along with Talos incident response services aiding in testing your defense and managing breach incidents effectively.
Our OT security package encompasses the essential features that industrial entities require from the get-go. However, as articulated by Forrester, customers have the flexibility to either integrate the full suite of Cisco solutions or pair them with other technologies to safeguard their existing investments. Cisco is resolute in fostering an open ecosystem. Industrial Threat Defense is a modular offering where customers have the liberty to opt for complementary solutions from third-party vendors alongside Cisco products.
Blending Security and Networking for Scalable Deployment
Securing industrial operations entails profiling and monitoring multitudes of industrial assets, often situated in remote and challenging locations. The traditional methodology of deploying standalone appliances for OT visibility, threat detection, network segmentation, and secure remote access is proving unwieldy to implement, expensive to scale, and in certain cases, unfeasible.
As we set the foundation for the networking standards of tomorrow, Cisco Industrial Threat Defense embeds these OT security functionalities within industrial switches and routers. Consequently, the Cisco network gains insight into all connected devices, evaluates the OT security posture, enforces security protocols, enables zero-trust remote access, and more. This distinctive deployment approach simplifies the process for network administrators to roll out OT security measures at a sizable scale.
Emerson Cardoso, the Chief Information Security Officer at CPFL Energia, emphasizes the efficacy of this amalgamated security solution, noting that “following an evaluation of various OT security providers, we concluded that Cisco’s solution best suits protecting dispersed substations. Cisco’s OT visibility solution operates without necessitating a vast amount of WAN traffic, integrating seamlessly with other security tools, thus simplifying the deployment of an end-to-end security approach.”
Our comprehensive suite of predesigned security products empowers security teams to accomplish advanced milestones while minimizing the time, complexity, and gaps associated with dovetailing disparate point products. With the addition of Splunk to our lineup, Cisco is set to introduce more innovative solutions to OT and IT security, enhancing our offerings to better meet our clients’ needs.
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