Operational Strategies You Can Implement to Improve Your Cyber Resilience

Presentation Description: Operational goals of any industrial process should include (1) sending all employees, contractors and third-party vendors home safely a the end of the day and (2) preventing unsuccessful operational flows; a difficult challenge in the current age of technological advancements and interconnected operational networks (OT) controlled and monitored from remote locations.

The ability to accomplish these goals relies heavily on the cyber resilience of all connected OT networks. Updating operational policies and procedures such as Identity Access Management (IAM), Management of Change (MoC), Incident Response Plan (IRP) and maintenance to the aspects explicitly related to OT cybersecurity can help meet the crucial goal of keeping your organization and all the people in it safe. Simple strategies that improve cyber resilience include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Log in and log out requirements
2. Password usage
3. Personal device use guidelines
4. Remote connectivity management
5. Device configuration management
6. See something, say something
7. Cyber hygiene training

Small changes can be the difference between malware affecting daily operations and malware being a simple operational annoyance.

This presentation highlights how simple and easy, yet effective, operational adjustments to these areas can lead to a healthier cyber response during a crisis. Improving response times in an emergency can be a deciding factor in sending everyone home safely at the end of the day, especially in an environment where every second of positive production has a high cost. Conversely, any deviation from the expected output significantly impacts customers, employees and contractors, the public, and the environment.

Methodology: Presentation with Q&A at the end of the presentation.