Honeywell acquires cybersecurity provider to address manufacturing’s IoT vulnerabilities

The manufacturing sector is rife with unprotected Web of Issues (IoT) sensors and units, a lot of them built-in into enterprises’ mission-critical techniques. The ensuing gaps make operations know-how (OT) and knowledge know-how (IT) networks weak to devastating cyberattacks.

Visibility is essential. Shivan Mandalam, director of product administration, IoT safety at CrowdStrike, instructed VentureBeat that “it’s important for organizations to remove blindspots related to unmanaged or unsupported legacy techniques. With higher visibility and evaluation throughout IT and OT techniques, safety groups can shortly determine and handle issues earlier than adversaries exploit them.”

Honeywell’s acquisition of Israel-based SCADAfence, a number one supplier of OT and IoT cybersecurity options, is only one instance of the manufacturing business attempting to catch up, shut these gaps and defend in opposition to growing numbers of ransomware assaults. 

Manufacturing: An business underneath siege 

Something that stops a store flooring from working can shortly value a enterprise hundreds of thousands. That’s why ransomware assaults on producers generate hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in payouts. A whole lot of producers pay ransomware calls for with out disclosing the actual fact to clients. 

Gartner predicts that the monetary impression of cyber-physical system (CPS) assaults will attain over $50 billion by 2023. Restoration from a typical manufacturing breach prices $2.8 million. Not solely that: Almost 9 in 10 producers which have suffered a ransomware assault or breach have additionally had their provide chains disrupted.  

Honeywell acquires SCADAfence to shut the hole 

Honeywell’s SCADAfence acquisition supplies the manufacturing big “with further know-how and experience that assist speed up our innovation roadmap … and assist quickly evolving buyer necessities,” mentioned Michael Ruiz, GM of Honeywell Cybersecurity Providers, in a current interview with VentureBeat.

The acquisition will ship an built-in platform to producers, course of industries, and infrastructure suppliers at a time when assaults are escalating. 

“SCADAfence is a perfect complement to Honeywell’s OT cybersecurity portfolio, and when mixed with the Honeywell Forge Cybersecurity+ suite, it permits us to supply an end-to-end answer with applicability to asset, web site and enterprise throughout key Honeywell sectors,” Ruiz mentioned. 

Key focus areas embody asset discovery, menace detection and compliance administration, Ruiz instructed VentureBeat. “Our plan is to have the SCADAfence product portfolio combine into the Honeywell Forge Cybersecurity+ suite inside Honeywell Linked Enterprise, Honeywell’s fast-growing software program arm with a strategic concentrate on digitalization, sustainability and OT cybersecurity SaaS choices and options.” 

Recognized for its course of evaluation and integration experience, Honeywell is concentrating on the way it can benefit from its strengths in these areas and obtain scale shortly with the brand new acquisition. “This integration will allow Honeywell to supply an end-to-end enterprise OT cybersecurity answer to web site managers, operations administration and CISOs in search of enterprise safety administration and situational consciousness,” mentioned Ruiz. 

SCADAfence CEO Elad Ben Meir additionally commented on the synergies between the businesses. “We’re thrilled to affix Honeywell as we work in the direction of fulfilling our mission of empowering industrial organizations to function securely, reliably and effectively,” Ben Meir mentioned in a press launch. “This mix creates a major alternative for development, permitting us to mix our top-tier OT cybersecurity merchandise with one of many world’s main firms in industrial software program.”  

The deal expands Honeywell’s cybersecurity middle of excellence in Tel Aviv, the place SCADAfence is headquartered. Ruiz instructed VentureBeat that one of the crucial worthwhile facets of the acquisition is that Honeywell will have the ability to “almost double our analysis and improvement for OT cybersecurity, in all probability changing into one of many bigger OT cybersecurity analysis and improvement organizations on the market.”

Why Honeywell moved to accumulate SCADAfence

The IBM Safety X-Drive Risk Intelligence Index discovered that manufacturing is probably the most attacked business worldwide: The sector accounted for 23% of all ransomware assaults final yr. Greater than six in 10 breach makes an attempt on producers first focused OT techniques important to manufacturing operations.

Analysis agency Dragos predicts that ransomware assaults on industrial organizations will speed up this yr. Dragos’ most up-to-date Industrial Ransomware Assault Evaluation, from Q2 2023, discovered that 47.5% of ransomware assaults tracked globally impacted industrial organizations and infrastructure in North America, a rise of 27% during the last quarter.

All instructed, seven out of 10 ransomware assaults in Q2 have been geared toward manufacturing, adopted by the commercial management techniques (ICS) tools and engineering sector, the place 16% of assaults occurred.

The speedy rise in Fileless malware assaults displays this pattern. Fileless malware is designed to evade detection by cloaking its presence utilizing reputable instruments. CrowdStrike’s Kurt Baker, senior director of product advertising for CrowdStrike Falcon Intelligence, writes that “fileless malware is a sort of malicious exercise that makes use of native, reputable instruments constructed right into a system to execute a cyber-attack. In contrast to conventional malware, fileless malware doesn’t require an attacker to put in any code on a goal’s system, making it laborious to detect. This fileless strategy of utilizing native instruments to conduct a malicious assault is typically known as residing off the land or LOLbins.”

Closing OT/IoT blind spots 

Safety suppliers are upping their video games.

Final yr at Fal.Con 2022, CrowdStrike augmented Falcon Perception, launching Falcon Perception XDR and Falcon Uncover for IoT that concentrate on safety gaps in and between industrial management techniques (ICSs). 

Ivanti, for its half, has efficiently launched 4 options for IoT safety: Ivanti Neurons for RBVM, Ivanti Neurons for UEM, Ivanti Neurons for Healthcare, which helps the Web of Medical Issues (IoMT), and Ivanti Neurons for IIoT based mostly on the corporate’s Wavelink acquisition, which secures Industrial Web of Issues (IIoT) networks.

Different main suppliers providing IoT cybersecurity options embody AirGap Networks, Absolute Software program, Armis, Broadcom, Cisco, CradlePoint, CrowdStrike, Entrust, Forescout, Fortinet, Ivanti, JFrog and Rapid7.

AI and cybersecurity

Airgap Networks has created one of the crucial progressive approaches to closing the OT-IT hole. Its   Zero Belief Firewall (ZTFW) combines agentless microsegmentation, safe entry for essential property, and community and asset intelligence. Airgap’s distinctive method supplies its clients with the choice of absolutely segmenting legacy servers, ICS, IoT and personal 5G endpoints. The platform may combine right into a operating community with out brokers, {hardware} upgrades or main system modifications. 

VentureBeat interviewed Ritesh Agrawal, CEO of Airgap Networks, instantly following its launch of ThreatGPT, the corporate’s ChatGPT integration with the Airgap Zero Belief Firewall. Agrawal instructed VentureBeat, “As a result of ThreatGPT is absolutely built-in into the core of the ZTFW structure, our clients can use all accessible knowledge to coach the fashions. I imagine we’re first to market with this.”

ThreatGPT makes use of graph databases and GPT-3 fashions to assist SecOps groups achieve new menace insights. The GPT-3 fashions analyze pure language queries and determine safety threats, whereas graph databases present contextual intelligence on endpoint site visitors relationships. 

Agrawal instructed VentureBeat that “IoT places a number of stress on enterprise safety maturity. Extending zero belief to IoT is tough as a result of the endpoints differ, and the surroundings is dynamic and crammed with legacy units.”

Requested how producers and different high-risk business targets might get began, Agrawal suggested that “correct asset discovery, microsegmentation and identification are nonetheless the precise reply, however methods to deploy them with conventional options when most IoT units can’t settle for brokers? This is the reason many enterprises embrace agentless cybersecurity like Airgap as the one workable structure for IoT and IoMT.”