Tenable Operational Technology Security Operational Technology, Tenable, OT, cybersecurity, cyberthreats, security

The cyberthreats that can bring down critical infrastructures

As industries weave automation and IoT into their operational technology workflows, modern plants and factories have become targets for cyberattacks

IT and OT infrastructures are rapidly converging. How exposed are you?

Accidental convergence

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Accidental convergence

How attackers can get in

With IT assets comprising anywhere from 20-50% of modern industrial environments, the traditional air-gap is no longer enough to protect OT. Today’s cybercriminals can attack from all sides—and attacks laterally creep across IT to OT and vice versa.

Prev Threat

Next Threat

A single USB drive or infected laptop is all it takes for an attacker to gain control of your industrial network. Recent OT attacks have exploited previously unknown vectors, including:

Risk

Acoustic

Seismic

Magnetic

Physical media

Radio frequency

Thermal

No visibility into OT networks

Outdated equipment

Insecure controllers

Disgruntled and negligent employees

Banking

Utilities

Healthcare

Logistics

Auto

How attackers can get in

No visibility into OT networks

You can't defend what you can't see. If your OT assets are separate from your IT security, it can create “blind spots" that put your organization at risk. These gaps make it harder to identify and remediate threats across your complete IT/OT environment.

Malware that targets an IT environment can move into OT environments, and infect industrial networks. This is what happened with malware WannaCry and Petya.

• Devices impacted - More than 200,000 devices, including computers, MRI scanners, blood-storage refrigerators and theatre equipment. • Damage - Estimates range from $100,000,000 to the billions. • Industries impacted:

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How attackers can get in

Insecure controllers

Industrial control systems (ICS) keep the lights on. Because of their reliability, many of these devices have been in place for years. They are the workhorses of today’s modern society—and ground zero for attacks.

Lateral movement is the most preferred method used by hackers because of the relative ease of finding a weak link in the system, leveraging it as a point of entry, and then quickly owning the entire network.

Cloud connectors

Agent scanning

Industrial OT

Tenable’s OT security capabilities identify and predictively prioritize threats and vulnerabilities to maximize the safety and reliability of your operational technology environment.

Protect your industrial networks from

Cyberthreats

How we do it:

ICS/SCADA

Enterprise visibility

Active scanning

Container

Cloud

Web app

Enterprise IoT

Passive monitoring

Image assessment

Desktop

Virtual machine

Laptop

Mobile

Server

Network infrastructure

Threat detection and mitigation

Asset tracking

Vulnerability management

Passive monitoring for OT

Active query for OT

Web app scanning

Configuration control

Enterprise visibility

Threat detection and mitigation

Leveraging multi-detection methodologies Tenable ot Security:

Identifies anomalous network behavior

Enforces network security policies

Tracks local changes on devices

Identify

How it Works:

Asset tracking

All assets are classified, including workstations, servers, HMIs, historians, PLCs, RTUs, IEDs and network devices.

While there are a number of common threads across all facets of OT security, we understand that every industry has unique needs.

Learn what OT security can do for you

Power & utilities

Our industry experience

Curious how Tenable serves your industry? Click on an icon to read a case study.

Malicious insiders

Thanks to Tenable OT Security, I can spend less time on inventory management and more time on investigating and remediating actual threats and vulnerabilities.

Customer Testimonials

Steve Worley, SCADA Security Manager, City of Raleigh, North Carolina

“

Building management

Read the full case study

Oil & gas

Medical manufacturing

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Tenable OT Security is far ahead of anybody that I reviewed in the control security space. The company understands controls...why did that change happen? Who made that change? We now have that power.

John Roosa, CIO Stupp Corporation

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We found that Tenable understood cybersecurity from an industrial control system perspective, not just an IT perspective. And that’s what really drew us to them.

Paul Siegmund, Manager of Automation and Technology Services, Washington State Public Utility

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1/3

2/3

3/3

1/5

Discover

Devices that are inactive or dormant in the network’s "blind" zone and local-only data

2/5

Classify

All assets are classified, including workstations, servers, HMIs, historians, PLCs, RTUs, IEDs and network devices.

3/5

Collect

The inventory contains unparalleled asset information depth – tracking firmware and OS versions, internal configuration, running software and users, as well as serial numbers and backplane configuration for both IT and OT based equipment.

4/5

Track

The solution delivers situational awareness across all sites and their respective OT assets in a single pane of glass.

5/5

Vulnerability management

Vulnerabilities disclosed in 2020

18,300+

Vulnerabilities relevant to the environment

262

Learn how VPR prioritizes remediation

Initial baseline

Step 1

Configuration control

How it Works:

Periodic snapshot: No changes detected

Step 2

Activity triggered (changes detected in PLC ladder logic)

Step 3

Compare to baseline: Activate response

Step 4

Human error

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How attackers can get in

Outdated equipment

While IT managers regularly swap out older technology, OT staff are used to working with legacy systems, many of which pre-date the internet era. Some OT infrastructure hasn’t been updated since it was first installed -- maybe a decade ago or when a plant first opened.

OT lifecycle - 10-15 years

IT strives for the latest and greatest hardware and software. OT staff use legacy systems that prioritize safety and reliability.

Cybercriminals can take advantage of proprietary network protocols, which often lack basic security controls, like authentication or encryption.

IT lifecycle - 12-18 months

Critical Threats

The Tenable Solution

Industries we serve

Compliance

Ecosystem

Success Stories

Petya

WannaCry

Petya

WannaCry

Pharmaceuticals

Logistics

Petya and NotPetya’s prime focus was to encrypt files and wipe the boot record. Some believe the Russian military was responsible for the attack.

Chemical

Commercial Facilities

Communications

Critical Manufacturing

Dams

Defense Industrial Base

Emergency Services

Energy

Financial

Food & Agriculture

Government Facilities

Healthcare & Public Health

Information Technology

Nuclear Reactors, Materials & Waste

Transportation Systems

Water

of organizations have experienced an industrial cyberattack in the last year

56%

A disgruntled employee could steal code or sabotage a production line, leading to a catastrophic outcome.

How attackers can get in

Disgruntled and negligent employees

It’s not something we like to think about, because we trust our employees. But sometimes things happen beyond our control -- either intentionally or accidentally. Whether from a negligent insider or third-party vendor, or someone intending to do damage, the outcome is the same.

Industrial OT

ICS/SCADA

Web app

Enterprise IoT

Container

Cloud

Desktop

Virtual machine

Laptop

Mobile

Server

Network infrastructure

Cloud connectors

Active scanning

Passive monitoring for OT

Active query for OT

Agent scanning

Passive monitoring

Web app scanning

Image assessment

Tenable OT Security detects and alerts about threats coming from external and internal sources—whether human or malware based.

Tenable uses adaptive approaches to assessing assets and devices across the infrastructure —including both IT and OT environments—giving you full visibility across the entire converged attack surface.

Tenable OT Security automated asset discovery and visualization capabilities provide a comprehensive up-to-date inventory of all network assets.

Identify

All assets communicating across the network

Details including firmware, OS, internal configurations, patch levels, users, serial numbers and backplane configurations

Collect

Classify

All assets including workstations, servers, HMIs, historians, PLCs, RTUs, IEDs and network devices

Track

All configuration control changes to code, OS or firmware, whether coducted locally or through the network

Tenable OT Security generates a risk score for every asset in your OT network using its proprietary Vulnerability Priority Rating (VPR). This provides a continuous view of actual (not theoretical) risk and helps security teams isolate the 3% of vulnerabilities that should be addressed first.

Tenable OT Security tracks and logs all configuration changes executed by a user or by malware, whether over the network or directly on the device. Users can establish a backup snapshot with the "last known good state" for faster recovery.

Virtually every vertical has an alphabet soup of regulatory compliance requirements associated with it. Bringing together IT and OT hastens compliance with regulatory statutes, and the ability to proactively report on and demonstrate compliance makes any potential audit significantly easier.

Compliance made easier

Click on an acronym to learn how Tenable can help with your compliance.