The initiative has been widely known across industries as Cyber Security Awareness Month (CSAM), a movement where organizations around the world come together in an effort to protect both individuals and businesses from the growing threat of cybercrime for over 20 years.
ABB Process Automation is excited to continue our long-lasting tradition of bringing cyber security best-practices to our customers by expanding our annual internal CSAM program to our customer community. This year we are bringing awareness to the importance of safeguarding our world’s most critical infrastructure from cyber-attacks. Join us this month, as we share our knowledge and best-in-class technologies to better protect industrial companies’ people, assets, and data through bolstering their security posture with industry best practices and tools.
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Why cyber security in operational technology?
Cyber security is important to operational technology (OT) because it protects the safety and reliability of industrial processes of the world’s most critical infrastructures that are the backbone of our society. In the modern world of Industry 4.0 and IIoT the threat landscape has only worsened throughout the years with more systems and devices in the OT environment becoming increasingly intelligent and hyperconnected—introducing new attack vectors to the OT space that can be targeted and exploited with nefarious intent.
Building up security defences may seem like a daunting and painstaking process, but a single cyber-attack can bring a refinery, mining site, paper mill, or port to a screeching halt. As Winston Churchill once said, “To build may have to be a slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.” This illustrates a challenging decision all industrial companies must address, whether to build in proper security measures to enable digitalization and future technologies or neglect and face the devastating consequences of a breach that could cripple their business.
Downtime is a silent killer for any industrial organization in any vertical whether it’s in the energy industries, process industries, or marine and ports. Every second, minute, hour, or day of unplanned downtime translates to productivity inefficiencies, lost revenue, environmental risk, and potential irreparable damages to a company’s brand and reputation. Additionally, organizations that fail to adhere to security regulations and compliance may face direct cost in the form of fines and penalties.
A perfect example of this would be the cyber-attack on Maersk, a global shipping and logistics conglomerate. Imagine a terminal where a ship that has 10 to 20 thousand containers is entering a port every 15 minutes, now imagine if all the technology that runs that business suddenly ceased to work. Well, that’s exactly what happened to Maersk, who was one of the many victims to an attack dubbed NotPetya. The attack locked access to all systems that the company used to operate shipping terminals all over the world. The worldwide disruption affected shipping operations for two weeks and estimated to of cost the Danish shipping giant approximately $300 million USD.
All this to say, cyber security must become a top priority for industrial organizations around the world not only at the IT level but in the OT space as well. Together, with ABB as your trusted security partner we can work to reduce risk, protect vital systems, and contribute to a safe, more resilient world.
Weekly themes for Cyber Security Awareness Month 2024
This October, ABB has put together an exciting program on the overarching theme: Protecting The World’s Most Critical Infrastructure. With this theme in mind, ABB will share both our knowledge and technology to bring awareness to the importance of planning, implementing, and deploying industrial control systems securely from the start to better protect people, assets, and data.
In accordance with Cyber Security Awareness Month, ABB has put together the following weekly themes built on the foundation of three pillars consultancy, technology and service:
- Week 1: Cyber Security General
- Week 2: Cyber Security Consultancy
- Week 3: Cyber Security Technology
- Week 4: Cyber Security Services
- Week 5: Bringing It All Together
In the coming weeks, ABB will provide written resources, videos, graphics, webinars, and more that will further assist in the protection of industrial control system networks.
Join the fight!
Join the international initiative to fight cyber criminals and protect our world’s most critical infrastructure from cybercrime. Together, we can create a world that is not only safer but promotes a more sustainable way to go about planning, implementing, and deploying industrial control systems in a secure way from the beginning.
Watch the video or download the brochure to learn about ABB Ability Cyber Security portfolio.
Register for IIoT World ICS Cyber Security Day 2024 and hear from ABB and other security experts.
If you’re ready to start your cyber security journey, contact an ABB security expert today!
Author
Ruben Ramirez graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor’s in economics and business administration. He has over 12 years of B2B experience productizing, marketing, and launching SaaS solutions to better support and benefit organizations around the world.
He has worked on information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT), covering portfolios in supply chain, petroleum refining, cyber security, virtualization, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and more. Currently he serves as the Global Product Marketing Manager in Operational Excellence and Cyber Security for the Process Automation Process Industries (PAPI) Digital Business Line based in Houston, Texas.
