Secure your Industrial IOT devices and data from threats and breaches.

Aug 04 2020

Secure your Industrial IOT devices and data from threats and breaches.

Security of Internet of Things devices and data should be given high priority. It’s not an add-on or afterthought for the system or platform, because by 2025 there’ll be 25 billion connected devices around the world and to keep all this secure is an immense task. This scenario opens both a vast opportunity and a big risk! How do you ensure the data from billions of devices on the network isn’t compromised? How will enterprises and industrial manufacturers secure IoT deployments and solutions from threats and breaches?

The real success of Industrial IoT solutions depends on security monitoring, integrity of the devices and the data generated by the solution, while mitigating cyber security risks. Building trust in IIoT solutions is the first step and Trinetra T-Sense is very aware of this. Obviously the benefits of IoT are multiple, but a majority of businesses are deterred by the high cost of security and the correlative uncertainty of suffering high-profile cyber-attacks and security breaches.

Security Is Critical. A survey has revealed that in 2020 some 85% of companies will be implementing IoT in one or several of their business models, domain areas or operations. However, this digital transition to capitalise on the positive effects of being a smart enterprise also implies paying due attention to IIoT security. With the influx of IoT and spread of cloud services, enterprises (or manufacturers) are urged to enhance their security and policies, as incidents of security breaches and cyber-attacks have become recurrent despite its benefits.

An IIoT platform has to ensure a non-disruptive smart workflow across the enterprise to protect assets, remote assets and employees and secure critical digital information from hackers using a security system. Let us examine the most frequent IIoT challenges in security and steps in mitigating such risks. T-Sense IoT solutions will be following such guidelines and standards when customising or building a system for a client.

Identify and outline the Challenges. To find critical challenges we have to examine the components of IIoT system which composes of many interconnected devices, software integration, data transmission and internet access. Most susceptible to hacking are the interfaces connecting humans and machines, data acquisition systems, supervisory controls, PLCs and the distributed control systems. At T-Sense our team can help you to create a security system customised to your environment besides safely integrating it into your existing systems.

First identify present security threats and identify probable ones that can arise later as risks may change over time and circumstances. Never ignore security factors in an industrial environment as it could lead to serious consequences. Ensure compliance to IIoT security standards and best practices. We’ll discuss here steps to take to protect your smart factory or enterprise by outlining the characteristic types of risks your enterprise or factory may face.

  • Check for data integrity, availability of services and damaged equipment, inventory or products, as problems may originate here.
  • Detect the vulnerable devices and applications that are in the system by creating a registry of all components from the smallest sensor onwards. If any component or device shows non-typical behaviour it will be easy to identify security vulnerabilities and potential threats.
  • Form the access or privilege policy to know exactly who has access to each component or device in the registry to detect or prevent potential threats.
  • Monitor the non-typical or suspicious activity that are not following the set standards or process. As all are interconnected the compromise of one device would be an indicator or early warning. Monitor the most critical devices as per priority.

Use software for Security. Security systems for a smart enterprise or factory have to be also smart. Advanced security solutions have to handle and assimilate very large data sets and traffic and be scalable to meet the requirements of an IIoT platform. Both security and non-security data have to be monitored in real-time and support alerts & notifications.To identify threat, data should be continuously monitored, captured, indexed, classified and analysed from various sources including firewalls, and anti-virus software. Integrated with Data Analytics it can be put into good use to develop a solution that is needed in a highly connected digital world.

T-Sense’s Industrial IoT platform has many customisable applications that can help development of a solution to empower your company (or factory)  and to undergo digital transformation. Or just post an enquiry or request You can also contact our team of professionals to discuss on your requirements and plans.