Manufacturing organizations face unique challenges to better secure their non-carpeted areas. This is because a single organization can have many different types of manufacturing environments with many different operational requirements for each one. This results in different ways each manufacturing environment needs to be secured.
Even with these differences, most manufacturing organizations share a common objective: How to consolidate multiple security methods into a singular solution that can meet all the requirements established for each environment.
Non-carpeted excludes the area used or designated for administrative activities, not surprisingly referred to as the carpeted area. Non-carpeted areas normally have very few “smart” machines such as desktops and laptops, but instead are highly populated with computer-aided machinery which falls under the Internet of Things (IoT) and Operational Technology (OT) technology umbrellas.
Unfortunately, these IoT/OT devices are highly susceptible to malicious attacks given the fact they run a purpose-built minimal operating system, which is usually Linux-based. Because of this, manufacturing organizations share concerns about issues such as the weaponization of IoT/OT equipment, using these devices to initiate phishing attacks, reprogramming of these devices to potentially initiate a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, or even having them become network listeners or jump systems that allow a malicious actor to exfiltrate data.
Legacy Approaches for Legacy Equipment
Manufacturing organizations have traditionally implemented several common security solutions, including security segmentation (micro/macro) using layer 3 access control lists (ACLs), and even security group tags (SGT’s) to highly restrict traffic across the layer 2 and layer 3 segments of the network. Another popular security implementation in this type of environment is the use of layer 4 and layer 7 firewalls to create protected enclaves for these networks.
All of these solutions do have a common theme. The maintenance of the environments is extremely manual since each solution requires heavily restricted access to the enterprise network. These restrictive approaches sacrifice network access and usability in favor of increased security. If the organization doesn’t have the ability to remotely manage their environments, then it must either incur the costs of having highly trained professionals at each site who can directly log into the environment or incur the costs of travel for individuals to go to various locations and perform periodic maintenance.
And, every one of these environments has additional build costs since a completely separate architecture must be implemented to support each solution.
Manufacturing organizations can strengthen their network architecture against attacks through several different approaches. In many cases, they will need to reassess their infrastructure foundations before additional security solutions can be considered. One of the first security solutions that should be deployed is Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) to limit access to systems and data, particularly in a remote facility environment. Requiring authentication before granting access is an important way a manufacturer can protect its network and keep data secure.
Also, the ability to integrate new security solutions with existing systems is critical for strengthening an organization’s network architecture, especially in non-carpeted environments. Integration not only simplifies systems and their management, it provides greater security and flexibility to modernize and futureproof networks. Achieving strong integration also enables manufacturers to have greater visibility of their distributed systems, making it easier to identify and defend against cyber threats.
Taking It to the Edge
To achieve the above goals and more, Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) provides the integration of networking and security solutions, such as firewall-as-a-service (FWaaS) and ZTNA, into a cloud-delivered service that is flexible and elastic to meet organizational needs. Cloud delivery makes it easy for manufacturers to apply security services and consistent policies remotely where they are needed. This is especially useful for larger organizations that have many locations of different sizes and various network requirements.
In addition to cost reduction and efficiency, SASE can deliver unified threat detection and data protection capabilities, all controlled by a single management solution. SASE also enables manufacturing organizations to more easily implement uniform access control policies based on identity and posture across locations, improving their ability to identify unusual behavior and apply risk-based restrictions automatically.
And finally, when it comes to IoT/OT security concerns as mentioned earlier, Unified SASE has proven to be a valuable solution to help compensate for the security features that these devices lack. SASE delivers a tighter integration between security and network performance, ensuring vulnerabilities are addressed with the latest in security functions while also keeping the network running at peak performance.
With Unified SASE, manufacturers can ensure that all endpoints in a non-carpeted network – no matter the location or size – are equipped with consistent security coverage, policy, and management capabilities. In addition to enabling controls on data access and using sandboxing to isolate and analyze suspicious traffic, Unified SASE improves bandwidth speeds and reduces latency to improve performance. Data no longer needs to pass through multiple devices thanks to the integrated single software stack offered by advanced Unified SASE solutions.
In today’s world where any organization can be a target for a cyberattack, a strongly secured network architecture with end-to-end visibility is crucial to a resilient security posture in manufacturing environments. Enabling a single point of control using approaches such as Unified SASE ensures that manufacturers can create a more streamlined and secure network architecture across their headquarters and remote facilities.
To protect private data and networks, organizations should work toward a common goal of implementing an approach that combines network architecture, security, and visibility – all benefits delivered in a Unified SASE environment.