According to Fortinet, organizations have made progress in strengthening their OT safety posture over the previous 12 months, however there are nonetheless key areas to enhance as IT and OT community environments proceed to converge.
Cyber assaults compromising OT methods are on the rise
In 2023, 49% of respondents skilled a intrusion affecting solely OT methods or each IT and OT methods. But this yr, 73% of organizations have been affected. Survey knowledge additionally reveals a year-over-year improve in intrusions affecting solely OT methods (from 17% to 24%). Given the rise in assaults, 46% of respondents say they’re measuring success based mostly on the restoration time wanted to renew regular operations.
31% of respondents reported six or extra intrusions, up from simply 11% final yr. With the exception of a lower in malware, all intrusion varieties elevated in comparison with final yr. Phishing and compromised enterprise e mail intrusions had been the commonest, whereas cell safety breaches and internet breaches had been essentially the most generally used strategies.
Despite more and more refined threats, the report suggests most organizations nonetheless have blind spots of their environments: Respondents who declare their central safety operations have full visibility into OT methods have declined since final yr, dropping from 10% to five%.
However, an growing variety of corporations report having 75% visibility, indicating that organizations are gaining a extra life like understanding of their safety posture. However, 56% of respondents have skilled a ransomware or wiper intrusion, up from simply 32% in 2023, indicating there may be nonetheless room for enchancment in the case of community visibility and detection capabilities.
OT safety nonetheless has room for enchancment
The share of organizations aligning OT safety with the CISO continues to develop, growing from 17% in 2023 to 27% this yr. At the identical time, the variety of organizations shifting OT duty to different C-level roles, akin to CIO, CTO or COO, is rising to over 60% within the subsequent 12 months, underscoring issues about OT safety and threat in 2024 and past.
Survey outcomes additionally discovered that in organizations the place the CIO doesn’t have direct duty, these tasks have shifted upward from the director of community engineering to the vice chairman of operations, once more indicating an extra escalation of duty. Regardless of the title of the person overseeing OT safety, the promotion beneath C-suite degree could also be a sign that OT safety is changing into a extra seen subject on the board degree.
To deal with quickly evolving OT threats and an increasing assault floor, many organizations are combining a variety of safety options from completely different distributors, leading to overly complicated safety architectures, hindering visibility and straining restricted safety workforce assets.
“Fortinet’s 2024 State of Operational Technology and Cybersecurity report reveals that whereas OT organizations are making progress in strengthening their safety posture, groups nonetheless face vital challenges in securing converged IT/OT environments. Deploying important instruments and capabilities to enhance visibility and safety throughout their networks is vital for these organizations to cut back imply time to detection and response, finally lowering the general threat in these environments,” stated John Madison, CMO at Fortinet.
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