In the modern world of interconnectivity, geopolitical tensions and kinetic conflicts are no longer confined to the battlefield. They spill into the virtual realm, pushing cybersecurity from a digital discipline into a critical component of economic security and survival.
Enterprises—especially those with a global footprint—must come to grips with the sobering reality that military action and cyberattacks are threats that often accompany one another. With fighting currently happening on fronts in the Middle East and Ukraine, threat levels are elevated to both critical infrastructure and personal safety. Chief information security officers and business leaders alike should be proactive about understanding how and where threat actors could strike at cyber-physical systems in particular, and enhanced cyber threat detection is a necessary component when prioritizing CPS protection.
The Early Cyber Threat Detection Imperative
Early threat detection is already a cornerstone of CPS cybersecurity, but during political unrest, response times must be executed with unprecedented speed and precision. The cyber warfare component of military action is often backed by state-sponsored and/or ideologically motivated groups that are looking to disrupt or damage critical infrastructure.
Without robust and proactive threat detection capabilities, organizations remain vulnerable to attacks that carry potentially devastating real-world consequences. Here are some key pillars for effective early threat detection.
Actionable threat intelligence
Understanding common attack types is paramount to stopping them. That’s why it’s so critical for organizations to have actionable threat intelligence, including knowledge of attackers’ tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). This intelligence can go a long way to staying one step ahead of how attackers gain entry to secure networks, and it’s even more valuable when informing strategic decisions around CPS protection..
Comprehensive asset inventory
It’s said all the time in CPS security, but it bears repeating: You can’t protect what you can’t see. A thorough understanding of your organization’s asset inventory is the foundation of any security strategy. It doesn’t stop at listing assets, though—knowing which device to protect based on potential business impact if it were suddenly taken offline is key. Attackers will often target the most critical assets in an attack, which is why you should allocate threat-detection capabilities to protect the most critical assets first.
Strengthened network segmentation
Stopping a threat is one thing, but if a breach does occur, the attacker might also get the ability to move laterally throughout your network. This is where containment comes in. Segmenting your network into isolated zones and granular access policies can be the biggest difference-maker here.
The Business Impact of Early Threat Detection
Early threat detection puts organizations in an advantageous position, but in times of conflict, it can be the difference between staying protected and responding to a major incident. Having the ability to proactively identify threats before they have a chance to shut down CPS processes is essential. Here are some of the other benefits to early threat detection in times of conflict:
Minimized operational downtime
Early threat detection can be crucial in keeping the lights on for production, power, and essential services. This can also have a cascading effect on the rest of your organization, with examples below.
Reduced financial losses
For every minute a CPS device is offline, your organization takes a financial loss. This can also translate to recovery costs for both reputational damage and for the recovery of the equipment itself.
Bolstered risk assessment
A real-time understanding of the threat landscape is also crucial. Timely threat detection helps with this, but in times of political conflict, this process should be continuous and not static. Data received from early threat detection can dramatically help your organization with risk assessments, and help prioritize investments or allocations of resources.
Faster incident response times
If your organization does experience a breach or incident, data collected from early threat detection can help your security teams identify, remediate, and contain incidents with faster response times.
Strengthened compliance
Having a robust cybersecurity strategy in place also inherently helps compliance efforts with various industry frameworks and directives, ensuring your organization stays on track with protecting critical infrastructure.
Keeping CPS Protected During Political Conflict
In a time when geopolitical conflict is fought just as fiercely in the digital realm as it is on the battlefield, protecting critical infrastructure is nothing short of crucial. A recent analysis determined that over a five-year hypothetical scenario, the global economy could lose over $14.5 trillion from the threat of widespread geopolitical conflict.
With these daunting numbers in mind, it’s important to partner with an organization that offers complete protection for CPS environments. WIth purpose-built monitoring, streamlined threat alerts that minimize false positives, and easy identification and remediation of attack vectors, Claroty can offer critical infrastructure the keys to staying resilient in the face of uncertainty brought on by geopolitical conflict.
Claroty is uniquely equipped to help your organization with a comprehensive security strategy. Backed by award-winning threat research and a breadth of technology alliances, the Claroty Platform enables organizations to effectively reduce CPS risk, with the fastest time-to-value, and lower total cost of ownership.
Request a demo and see how Claroty can protect your organization.
