The convergence of IT and OT environments has seen rapid expansion across sectors, industries, and organizations. This evolution has led to an increasing complexity of the threat landscape that OT environments are prone to. In order to mitigate these new and always changing threats, it has become increasingly important to develop seamless, defense-in-depth integrations that give comprehensive visibility and control over critical OT assets.
With this in mind, let’s explore how OPSWAT’s integration of two OT gatekeepers—MetaDefender OT Security and MetaDefender Industrial Firewall—creates a hardened perimeter of defense against evolving cyberthreats.
Growing Threats to OT Environments
Critical infrastructure is dealing with an ever-broadening attack surface as newly introduced variables—such as bring your own device (BYOD), internet of things (IoT), and industrial internet of things (IIoT)—create more points of entry for threat actors to exploit. With so many moving pieces at play, integrated cybersecurity technology solutions that optimize the efficiency of teams and maximize resources have become a necessity in response to today’s threat landscape. This cannot be accomplished with a single layer of defense; OT environments need security systems that have eyes on each and every asset, and complete control over communications.
Why Integration for Control and Visibility is the Latest Game Changer
For CISOs/CIOs, there are two primary indicators of a successfully functioning OT environment:
Maximized Uptime
Ensure the continuous and secure operation of critical industrial processes, preventing disruptions that could impact productivity, safety, and overall business resilience
Full Asset Visibility
Complete views of the Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), Human Machine Interfaces (HMIs), and other Industrial Control Systems (ICS)
But what if these markers allowed control heighted security for operations as well? A failure to account for an asset, or loss of control of a machine can lead to down-time which, in turn, has a cascading effect on production, manufacturing, etc.
OPSWAT has introduced its first ever integration between MetaDefender OT Security and Industrial Firewall to combat OT vulnerabilities with a two-pronged approach comprising comprehensive visibility and advanced defense against diverse threats targeting critical assets. This seamless integration is a strategic pairing that greatly strengthens an organization’s overall OT cybersecurity posture, enabling visibility of assets and control over what communication paths and types are allowed within critical networks.
Next-Level OT Security with MetaDefender
Critical Asset Protection with Industrial Firewall
OPSWAT's industrial security appliance and intelligent Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), is positioned at the forefront of industrial endpoints, protecting critical PLCs and other devices. It sets the stage for a resilient defense against cyber adversaries targeting OT environments. By learning and enforcing normal operations of a plant or manufacturing unit, we eliminate threats in real time. After completely learning the network layout, OPSWAT’s Industrial Firewall ensures any anomaly in the communication between HMIs and PLCs is detected and stopped immediately.
4 Key Benefits of MetaDefender Industrial Firewall
- Easy systems management for both large and small OT systems
- Simple to implement, operate, and maintain
- Communication/protocol pattern learning and implementation
- Learn, monitor, and protect modes for threat detection and prevention
Enhanced Visibility and Defense with OT Security
MetaDefender OT Security, OPSWAT's advanced asset visibility tool elevates security to new heights. Its machine learning (ML) capabilities empower organizations to actively and passively monitor devices for successful and accurate asset discovery. OT Security detects vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and threats to send timely alerts and allow the user to identify risk criticalities.
Users have access to a comprehensive and customizable dashboard that can provide reports on assets scanned, threat alerts, global, regional and industry regulatory compliance reporting and more in just a few clicks.
4 Key Benefits of MetaDefender OT Security
- Easy to use and built for OT personnel with little to no training requirements
- Comprehensive visibility and information on ICS assets
- Timely and accurate information on anomalies and threats on the network
- Prioritization of alerts and vulnerabilities
OPSWAT is committed to enhancing OT cybersecurity for the world’s critical infrastructure and our latest integrated solution is a testament to that. This integration not only streamlines incident response, but also elevates the efficiency of OT security overall. Defense-in-depth solutions like this are purpose-built to meet—and even exceed—the sophistication of modern cyberthreats, and when deployed, help to ensure the safe and continuous operation of the world’s most essential organizations.
Discover why OPSWAT is the critical advantage in OT cybersecurity—talk to one of our experts today.
