If our power grids, automated factories or utility networks don’t run, neither does our society and neither does your business. Your operational technology needs to operate reliably and safely. No questions asked.
This means you’re constantly on alert for anything that could stop your operational technology from running. Legacy tech posing a risk to your reliability. Regulatory change increasing scrutiny on your operations. It could even be a freak incident or hazard like a fire or a flood. Or it might be something less obvious but just as damaging: a cyber attack.
More cybercriminals than ever are capable of making your operational technology less reliable and safe, and have the potential to bring it to a grinding halt. And because many operational technology environments are now better connected – gathering sensitive data about your decision-making, patented blueprints and trade secrets – the risks to your intellectual property and infrastructure are even greater.
Operational Technology Security should be seen as more than just protecting, but enabling your operations. By assessing your infrastructure today, it’s an opportunity to boost your reliability, safety and operability – giving you an awareness of how to increase efficiency, improve productivity, operate more safely, cut waste across your estate, reach Net Zero targets, and more.
Technology is an enabler of this, but it’s also about people. Protecting your operational technology isn’t solely about introducing a new antivirus or another advanced cyber security system. To embed lasting change, you need your teams to understand it and care about it. Then, a security culture needs to be enabled by the efficient and secure use of tech.
We work with organisations on varying stages of their cyber security journey. You might be starting completely from scratch or you could have employed cyber security methods before, which perhaps hasn’t achieved the results you wanted. Quite often, the first stage of understanding the threats you face is taking a snapshot of where you are today.
We do this using our Operational Technology Lab, an analysis and benchmarking service securely hosted on PwC’s cloud. Using samples from your network traffic, this service will help you discover your operational technology assets and their vulnerabilities, prioritise cyber remediation plans, benchmark tools and technologies, and integrate and optimise your detective capabilities.
We’ll help you think about how you secure your operational technology, putting a plan together for who does what and what happens when.
You may need to roll out new technology and training, document and improve your processes, or test the integration between your site teams, global security operations and third parties.
In our experience, process, people and technology are interconnected, so careful planning is required to deliver changes in the right order, prioritising your greatest risks.
Once you understand your assets, your vulnerabilities and the threats you face, you can begin to focus on how you can counteract them.
To help you manage them in the long term, we use our Managed Cyber Risk services to help quantify the risks you face and visualise the threats you face with its easy-to-use, live digital dashboards.
You and your teams use your machinery, utility systems and operations every day. Collectively, you’re the eyes and ears of your organisation.
Just like when dealing with a health and safety scenario, you need a situational awareness of how to identify, prevent and act during a cyber security incident.
Through training, awareness and crisis exercises, we can help you get equipped with the skills, ways of working and culture you need to operate reliably and safely.
Getting this right can create even bigger benefits than cyber protection and defence. Increased security can reduce costs through streamlined infrastructure, which could even offset the operational cost of increased security. It can also help you be transformative and innovate by helping you embrace cloud technology securely.
Greater connectivity can help you gather more data, helping you track your progress towards Net Zero. It can improve your overall resilience.
From strategy to support through to delivery, we offer extensive technical expertise and industry knowledge to support teams across operational technology and your wider business, so you can increase your cyber resilience while improving your operations simultaneously.
We’re a combination of engineers and cyber security specialists, with access to a broad network of wider business expertise in process improvement, skills and culture, and more.
From oil and gas to shipping to public utilities, we’re helping companies of all sizes to securely, responsibly and confidently adopt intelligent manufacturing and supply chains of the future, through our intelligent platform in manufacturing. We understand what matters most to you and your sector, and the opportunities there for you to grasp.
Our people and change specialists ensure your people become a key part of the change. We bring to life the importance of Operational Technology Security and why it matters for those on the ground.
Collaborating with you closely and becoming part of your team, we use agile methodologies to work quickly, help you identify challenges and ensure projects are delivered. We can also identify change champions or use your existing people structures to help further embed the change.
We’ve formed Alliances with world-leading cyber security technology companies, including Microsoft, Claroty, Armis, Palo Alto Networks and Tanium. So you can be confident that our work together is built on the very best systems available today.
We pair this with our own proprietary tech, including the Operational Technology Lab, which can help you identify threats and undergo scenario planning, and our Connected Risk Engine, helping you understand, monitor and manage your risk.
Sean Sutton
Operational Technology, Cyber Security Partner, PwC United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)7483 407797
Anka Moraru
OT Security Lead, Cyber for Energy, Utilities and Resources, PwC United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 7484 901245
