Are your “Shields Ready!” For Critical Infrastructure Protection?

CISA designated November as “Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience Month” and published a toolkit describing how the 16 critical infrastructure sectors can improve their security posture. The toolkit contains many great tips and details for essential organizations operating critical infrastructure, but two areas of the document jumped out at me as worthy of a deeper analysis.

The first is CISA’s description of the current threat environment. They assert that the increased digitalization of systems and processes underpinning critical infrastructure amplifies the risk to assets, and the owners and operators of critical infrastructure spend millions of dollars rectifying the damage after attacks. Sadly, they are 100% correct. IBM reported that critical infrastructure organizations experienced a 4.5% jump in the average cost of a breach compared to last year, increasing from $4.82 million to $5.04 million - $590k more than the global average. CISA emphasizes that the shifting geopolitical landscape has intensified the risks to critical infrastructure, and investment in infrastructure security and resilience can serve as a strategic deterrent.

The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section was the second area that caught my attention. CISA points out, “Operational technology and industrial control systems pose unique risks that demand particular focus due to the heightened consequences of disruption and challenges related to deploying certain security controls at scale.” This hits very close to home, as BlastWave is focused on providing OT security across multiple critical infrastructure sectors.

What if the focus wasn't solely on recovery from an attack? What if you could reduce the likelihood of an attack and reduce the potential for a cascading hack throughout your OT systems?

A solution like this would answer the call for “Shields Ready.” Ironically enough, our product is BlastShield, and we would love to tell you how our next-generation OT security solution for Network Cloaking and Secure Remote Access delivers industrial-grade security with a user experience equivalent to Apple Pay.

Start learning about our solution with “How to Keep Industrial Control Systems Safe and Resilient: A Non-Techie's Guide” and request a demo of BlastShield.