Effective cybersecurity management is imperative for all organizations. There are many standards and guidelines available for organizations to refer to in order to move forward. In this article, we will introduce specific action items based on well-defined frameworks and standards when building a cybersecurity management system for your own industrial control system (ICS). Taking a defense-in-depth approach to network construction and choosing secure-by-design solutions from trusted vendors can help simplify the ICS cybersecurity decision-making process.
In order to understand the key elements of the cybersecurity management system (CSMS), we can take an in depth look at one of the well-defined industry standards — the IEC 62443 series of standards — which provide a holistic and wide-ranging approach to securing industrial control systems (ICS). Although these standards provide a wealth of information to asset owners, supply chain managers and product development teams in an ever-expanding spectrum of field applications, it can be difficult to distill concrete action items for building an ICS cybersecurity management system. Here, we identify the main elements in the CSMS development process proposed by the IEC 62443 standards.