If you work in the energy sector, you probably have one or more of the following security challenges:

• You need to integrate your OT systems with your IT systems In a secure way, this integration is necessary to analyze data from your OT systems.

• You need to remotely control and monitor your sensitive OT systems securely, and you need to allow vendors to perform maintenance and/or allow operations personnel to monitor and control your systems.

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• You want to centralize your data logging in a secure way to avoid the risk of attacks that such a communication channel may pose.

• You must report data to a government cloud service and want to avoid this opening up attack vectors to your sensitive systems.

• You want to ensure that your business can continue without interruption even during a cyberattack, because your activity is socially critical.

In this article, we will explain how you can address these security challenges.

Secure IT/OT integration

Dividing IT and OT into separate segments helps you avoid threats or disruptions in IT so that they do not affect OT. To also avoid risks due to configuration errors or malfunctions, physical segmentation (zoning) should be used where possible. This means using separate hardware for IT and OT.

The most secure way to connect a privacy/availability-sensitive data network to other systems is to use data diodesAll data flows that can be handled with data diodes involve a simplified security analysis, simply because a data diode is so secure and easy to verify. Or, more accurately, because it has such high assurance.

Here are two examples of when data diodes in an OT environment make integration into the IT network more secure:

• Database mirroring: One method of exporting data from the OT zone is to mirror the contents of a database from The OT zoneBy creating a copy of the data on the IT side, you can allow read access to all IT systems that need to access the database content.

• XML export: Another method is to create an XML file in the OT zone, containing all the data needed outside the OT. This file is then sent regularly via file transfer to a recipient in the IT zone.

Read more about secure IT/OT integration!

Secure remote access

One of the most common challenges for industries and manufacturers today is when equipment lacks remote access due to being offline, requiring special connectivity (USB, serial), or lacking session control. It can also be legacy equipment (Windows XP and similar) or equipment that has non-compliant solutions that are invisible to IT and cyber.

With Advenica Remote Access Device gives you a secure way to access. It offers ad-hoc remote access, wherever and whenever needed. It also offers support for third-party needs such as tunneling, IP/USB/Serial or even KVM access, in addition to easy user administration.

Advantages of the remote access device:
• Portable: Small form factor and built-in battery allow users to easily move remote access to a single endpoint or a network of endpoints.
• Secure: Built on zero-trust principles, ensuring Least Privileges, access control, and audit logging.
• Versatile: A wide range of I/O options enable connections to a wide range of devices.
• Clientless: Plug-and-play solution that requires no software installation on the endpoint, network, or technician's computer.
• Out-of-band: Built-in LTE connectivity ensures remote access is isolated from the network.
• Offline: Whether using LTE, WiFi, or LAN, the internet connection is not shared with the endpoint and remains offline during remote access.

Read more about secure remote access.

Secure centralized logging

Most IT systems generates logs that enable troubleshooting and traceability. To get the most out of such logs, it is important to combine logs from as many systems as possible into a chronological list. By monitoring logins, failed login attempts, transactions, USB usage, etc., effective preventive measures can be identified and damage control can be taken without delay. However, the nature of data makes log servers a favorite target for hackers. Corrupted or tampered data logging systems have no value, therefore they must be protected at the highest possible level. With new regulations such as NIS2 requiring incident reporting quickly and accurately, it is crucial that logs are available and reliable.

To ensure privacy and security, high-security solutions are required. Data diodes create high-security isolation in the reverse direction, thereby blocking everything from the outside.

Read more about secure logging.

Secure reporting to government cloud services

Many organizations today have to report data continuously to authorities. This is because the authority needs statistics from the various organizations that report to them in order to set the right requirements for the reporting organizations, charge them the right amount, or to be able to get a complete picture of the subject in question. In most cases, this reporting is done to a cloud service that the authority has. But this cloud service is a potential attack vector for a cyberattack, this could potentially affect all organizations reporting to this authority.

To avoid this, one can data diode placed between the cloud service and the reporting organization. Then data can only flow in one direction, from the reporting organization to the cloud service.

How to protect your business from cyberattacks

Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all formula that will allow you to completely protect yourself against all cyberattacks. But there is a lot you can do to prevent it from happening, but also ways to reduce the damage of an attack.

To begin with, every company or organization must identify which information or systems are most critical and therefore worth protecting. Since most systems today are interconnected, it is difficult to get an overview of how many paths lead to the most valuable information. By conducting a risk and vulnerability analysis, information and systems worth protecting can be classified and loopholes identified.

However, it is not practical or economically justified to protect all information in the same way. To secure the most valuable information, strict network segmentation is the best solution to use. This means that you creates zones with different security levels.

After creating zones, you should choose security solutions for operation, availability, and adaptability based on the attacker's perspective and worst-case scenario. To protect your most critical information, be sure to use professional solutions for high security and solutions that are future-proof.

Use these four concrete tips on how to protect yourself and your companies against cyberattacks:

1. Create a good safety culture
2. Segment your networks
3. Set requirements for your subcontractors
4. Update safely

Read more about these tips!

Read more about how to improve your OT security.

We have the security solutions and experience you need

Advenica has extensive experience in solutions where networks are physically isolated while information is securely connected. Our expertise and solutions secure your ICS information management – and enable accelerated digitalization without compromising the availability and integrity of your ICS systems.

In our customer cases “Wiener Netze protects its infrastructure with solutions from Advenica” and "Larger energy companies secure their operations with solutions from Advenica" You can read how large energy companies secure their operations with our help.