How to Protect your Production Plant from Malware Attacks (Auvesy Blog)

Are you prepared to protect, detect, and react to a cyber attack?

After a series of malware attacks in the United States, companies in a wide variety of industries are asking themselves “how can we protect ourselves from this?” Attackers have already come for Colonial Pipeline, a critical transportation company for refined oil products, and JBS, a meat processing plant. Is your company next?

Both CISA and the FBI are urging owners and operators in critical sectors to adopt a heightened state of awareness. Manufacturers in any industry should take this advice, as recent attacks have cost companies upwards of $5 million in ransom and downtime that lasted between 1-7 days. What should you do to heighten awareness and protect your production plant from malware attacks?

How to Protect your Production Plant from Malware Attacks

Take inventory.

You can’t protect what you don’t know about. Make it a priority to identify all of your devices, both IT and OT. The Asset Inventory Service can help you quickly and clearly identify all of the devices in your facility.

Measure risk, then reduce it.

You’ve identified your assets. Now, which ones are exposing you to the most risk? The Asset Inventory Service identifies outdated operating systems, firmware versions, and other vulnerabilities. Then, you can use this risk assessment to systematically improve your cybersecurity stance.

Segment IT and OT.

Recent cyber attacks have targeted vulnerabilities in IT networks, but have impacted production due to a lack of robust network segmentation. Assume that, if able, hackers will try to gain access to your OT devices. After all, a small change to a PLC can have large-scale impact on safety, productivity, or product quality. Limit hackers’ ability to gain access to your important OT devices by segmenting IT and OT networks, eliminating unregulated communication and access.

Perform regular backups.

Implement regular data backup procedures for all of the devices in your organization. Backups should be conducted frequently, so that you always have up-to-date data to restore if needed. Of course, this can sound like a daunting undertaking for teams still relying on manual backups. versiondog saves you time and effort by automatically backing up a wide variety of IT and OT devices like PLCs, HMIS, SCADAs, switches, scanners, and more.

Have a detection plan.

Although ransomware attackers make themselves known to obtain payment, not all cyberattacks are as obvious. Make sure you can detect unauthorized changes to your IT and OT devices. Protect your data by using versiondog. versiondog compares the version running on each device with the version stored on the server. If a change is detected, the appropriate users are immediately notified to take swift action to address the cybersecurity issue.