Session Absract:
SoftServe’s latest industry data shows the highest priority for manufacturers wanting to improve their operations is to connect their Operational Technology (OT) to the Information Technology (IT) of the cloud. However, the data also shows the last item on their priority list is OT cybersecurity. With factories accelerating the linking of their internal systems to the cloud, one can see the increasing risk of bad actors getting into the OT world creating havoc in a new way. Our panel will discuss the security challenges being observed in our hyper connected industrial world, leading practices to mitigate those security risks and how the future may unfold if we do not systematically address those risks facing the industrial sectors.
Speaker:
Guy Merritt is an experienced C-suite executive, Guy has 35 years engineering leadership advising and developing IoT solutions, native cloud-based systems, products and engineering & manufacturing test solutions for a wide variety of industries. He is an author of the award-winning book “Proactive Risk Management: Controlling Uncertainty in Product Development.”
Eric Simone is the Founder and CEO of ClearBlade Inc., an Enterprise Edge Computing Internet of Things (IoT) software company focused on large Enterprises in the transportation, building facilities, and connected products markets. Prior to starting ClearBlade, Eric was the founder and CTO of Compete Incorporated, which sold to Perficient Inc. (PRFT) for $63M in May of 2000. Earlier in his career, Eric achieved success in senior engineering, product and sales positions at IBM and Johns Hopkins Hospital. Eric has a degree in Computer Science from Purdue University and is a recognized Distinguished Alumni.
Matt Malone, After graduating from Texas A&M, Matt embarked on his eight-year career in the U.S. Navy as a salvage diver and bomb disposal technician. He completed three overseas deployments, two of which were combat deployments. He returned home to Texas to begin a career in sales before transitioning to project management. During his time as a project manager, he caught the cybersecurity bug and changed his master’s thesis to address the current state of industrial cybersecurity in North America. He has since devoted his career to learning everything possible about how to secure industrial control systems against cyberattacks. Matt joined Yokogawa in April of 2020 as a cybersecurity consultant, earned his GICSP certification soon after, and is passionate about securing ICS networks.
Key Takeaways
Recently @SoftServeInc did a survey of over 400 manufacturing companies world wide, we asked what their No. 1 priority for technology was. No. 1 was to connect OT gear to IT infrastructure. With only 2%, at the bottom of the list, was OT security. 70-80 % of factories have never been cloud connected. It is absolutely inevitable that there will be an OT catastrophic security breach.
All our customers want to get data from all their desparate devices, then for us to gather that data to do analytics. The challenge is must of these things have not been connected before. We have to do our job at the application level and the data transmission level. Let’s build this as secure as possible then be flexible enough to work with the procedures in place at these companies. Eric Simone, ClearBlade
Unfortunately we have a lot of clients using programs critical to their manufacturing processes that were possibly made by a company that doesn’t exist anymore. How do we bring this application that was running on much older machines protected? Matt Malone @Yokogawa
We talk a lot about the technology side of things but the technology is only as good as ultimately the operators involved. So the culture becomes imperative. So how can we foster the right culture so we can have broader security awareness everywhere? Guy Merritt @SoftServeInc
We defer to the industry specialists in their specific fields but we go in a try and be a positive flexible player and work with the existing enterprise systems that are there. Eric Simone, ClearBlade
