Critical infrastructure is under attack, and despite an agreement the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and operational technology (OT) security is critical, businesses are facing some significant challenges as the geopolitical landscape becomes increasingly tense, a new Barracuda Networks Inc. report reveals.

The research, The State of Industrial Security in 2022, commissioned by Barracuda, surveyed 800 senior IT managers, senior IT security managers, and project managers responsible for industrial in their organization to get their perspectives on IIoT/OT security projects, implementation challenges, security incidents, technology investments, and a variety of issues related to cybersecurity risks.

Security Breaches

Overall, the research shows that security breaches have impacts beyond monetary losses as well, resulting in significant downtime with a long-lasting breach impact. The research found:  

• Attacks are widespread: 94% of organizations surveyed acknowledged experiencing a security incident in the last 12 months.
• Geopolitical concerns: 89% of respondents are very or fairly concerned about the impact that the current threat landscape and the geopolitical situation will have on their organizations.
• Breaches are impacting operations: 87% of organizations that experienced an incident were impacted for more than one day.         

Investing in Industrial Security

Organizations across the board have acknowledged the importance of investing even further in IIoT and OT security, with 96% of business leaders noting that their organization needs to increase their investment in industrial security. A full 72% of organizations signaled that they have either already implemented or are in the process of implementing IIoT/OT security projects, but many are facing significant challenges when it comes to implementation, including basic cyber hygiene.      

• Manufacturing and healthcare lag behind: Critical infrastructure organizations are leading with implementation, and 50% in oil and gas having completed projects. Only 24% in manufacturing and just 17% in healthcare have completed projects.
• Businesses are experiencing failures: 93% have failed in their IIoT/OT security projects.
• Effective IIoT security implementations are making an impact: For organizations with completed IIoT and OT security projects, 75% have experienced no impact at all from a major incident.
• Multifactor authentication (MFA) use is low: Only 18% of companies surveyed restrict network access and enforce multifactor authentication when it comes to remote access to OT networks.
• Low MFA use is prevalent even in critical industries: Critical verticals like energy (47%) allow full remote access without MFA for external users.
• Skills have an impact: Less than half of organizations surveyed can handle applying security updates themselves (49%).
• Manual updates are cumbersome: Organizations are hit the worst when security updates are not automatic.

IIoT and OT security continue to be major targets for attackers, but there is hope for businesses that take a proactive approach. Businesses should implement tools to combat these challenges, including the use of secure endpoint connectivity devices and ruggedized network firewalls, all centrally deployed and managed via a secure cloud service that can enable effective network segmentation and advanced threat protection, provide multifactor authentication, and even implement zero trust access.

Download the full report at www.barracuda.com/iiot-2022-report