EMEA | The Hidden Battlefield: SecOps and the Rise of OT Threats

In a room illuminated only by the monitors clustered around him, a hacker somewhere in the eastern hemisphere types a command in a PuTTY client. Outside a city in Florida, in a nondescript concrete building, a card deck sized device’s network traffic lights begin flashing. The low voltage wire on the other side of the device energizes, causing the attached solenoid valve to open, flooding the water supply with dangerously high levels of chlorine.

What sounds like a movie script is becoming routine as attackers increasingly turn their gaze towards operational technology. These attacks close pipelines, stop factories, cut off electricity and threaten the life and health of thousands of people.

Attackers target OT not just because of the potential for damage but, ironically, because these systems are often so vulnerable and long ignored by organizations in terms of cyber security.

In this session, we will define Operational Technology, explain how it is a superset of the possibly more familiar terms like SCADA and Industrial Control Systems (ICS). We will discuss what contributes to the vulnerability of OT at so many organizations and we will explore recent breaches such as:

• Toyota Supply Chain
• Oldsmar Water Plant
• Aliquippa Water Plant
• Tata Power Plant
• Danish State Railways

A key strategy in protecting OT assets is the use of privilege management technologies traditionally used for IT systems. Christopher Hills, Chief Security Strategist at BeyondTrust, will briefly discuss some of the statistics related to OT and highlight challenges organizations face. Chris Butchart, Solutions Engineer at BeyondTrust will then give a live demo of BeyondTrust Privilege Remote Access, showing how it can be used to securely access OT environments.