Episode 147
Is Your Cybersecurity Plan Ready for Your Plant Floor?
You passed the audit. The tools are installed. None of it means your plant is secure.
Chapters
- 00:00:00 — The hidden gap in OT asset visibility
- 00:04:00 — Why plant teams need access to security data
- 00:08:00 — The cost of an unoperationalized cybersecurity tool
- 00:10:00 — What IT and OT convergence really means
- 00:14:00 — Bringing system integrators into the conversation
- 00:18:00 — Who responds first when an industrial incident happens
- 00:22:00 — Compliance, residual risk, and real world security
- 00:26:00 — Risk prioritization for utilities and industrial operators
- 00:30:00 — Build security into new projects from the start
Show notes
You passed the audit. The tools are installed. None of it means your plant is secure.
Most industrial cybersecurity plans are written far from the equipment they're meant to protect. The tools are purchased but never fully operationalized. Critical equipment stays unseen. And the plant teams who know it best are the last to see the data.
In this compilation episode, Craig Duckworth, Dino Busalachi, and Ian Bramson of Black & Veatch cover:
- Why security tools sit unused, and what that costs
- Why plant teams need access to security data
- What real IT and OT collaboration looks like
- Who responds first when something goes wrong
- Why compliance isn't security
- How to prioritize risk while protecting safety and uptime
Strong security programs are built with the people closest to the equipment. Is yours?
Chapters:
- (00:00:00) The hidden gap in OT asset visibility
- (00:04:00) Why plant teams need access to security data
- (00:08:00) The cost of an unoperationalized cybersecurity tool
- (00:10:00) What IT and OT convergence really means
- (00:14:00) Bringing system integrators into the conversation
- (00:18:00) Who responds first when an industrial incident happens
- (00:22:00) Compliance, residual risk, and real world security
- (00:26:00) Risk prioritization for utilities and industrial operators
- (00:30:00) Build security into new projects from the start
Links And Resources:
- Want to Sponsor an episode or be a Guest? Reach out here.
- Industrial Cybersecurity Insider on LinkedIn
- Cybersecurity & Digital Safety on LinkedIn
- BW Design Group Cybersecurity
- Dino Busalachi on LinkedIn
- Craig Duckworth on LinkedIn
Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Industrial Cybersecurity Insider? Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube to leave us a review!
Full transcript
Craig [00:00:00] You need to have an IR plan. It needs to be practiced, and it doesn't need to be practiced at 9:30 on a Tuesday. It needs to be practiced on a weekend when you're at home. You're not in the office. Do you have your stuff with you if you happen to be at dinner with your family when you get a phone call that says, "We just got breached."
Craig How are you gonna respond?
Intro - Outro Welcome to the Industrial Cybersecurity Insider. In each episode, we dive into the world of industrial cybersecurity. Join us as we cover the latest trends, innovations, and practical insights as we talk with leaders and practitioners across the industry. Gear up and let's get into this week's episode.
Craig Good morning. I'm Craig Duckworth.
Dino And I'm Dino Busalacchi. [00:01:00]
Craig Hello, Dino Busalacchi. How are you today?
Dino I'm good. Fancy seeing you again. It's only been, what, a day and a half?
Craig Yeah, I'd say 36 hours, but yeah, close. I get it.
Dino Yeah. Well, Nashville's a lot of fun.
Craig Oh, Nashville's fantastic. And for those that don't know, we just got back from Nashville from the 25th anniversary of the OTICS Cyber Security Conference, which is normally held in Atlanta.
Craig They moved it to Nashville for the anniversary. Phenomenal conference, great information, great group of, asset owners, vendors, suppliers,
Dino Integrators ...
Craig integrators, a- across the board. So fantastic conference. Yep. So let's, I think today, since we just got back, Dino, I think it'd be a, a good opportunity to kind of walk through some of the stuff that we saw, that we heard, kind of maybe, let's, let's call it state of the union-ish kind of maybe.
Craig [00:02:00] That make sense to you? You wanna start off? What's your thoughts?
Dino Well, the usual suspects were there, right, as far as the OT cybersecurity firms, you know, from Cisco and Palo Alto and Fortinet and, Dragos and Claroty and Nozomi, that, that were all there, and some others. A lot of, of the, OT remote access groups were also present.
Dino And, so, it... What was really interesting to me was, I was listening to a CISO from, a, a, a semiconductor company, and, her, her, session was really, really good. Talking... A- and her background was impressive because she came out of the military, right? Started in an AV, made her way, way all the way through intelligence and into the cyber piece and, and came out and, and got into the semiconductor business.
Dino But, her stories around,the amount of time that these, these bad actors are within your environment. And it's not so much to,try to push malware ransomware to shut you down as much as it was to steal IP, right? And, [00:03:00] and really try to, to sit in there as long as they can, and in some cases, they're in there for years, right?
Dino And staying in between, the area of... One of the things she was talking about a book that was written by, another, intel officer that has since passed, I think her last name was, Bravo. and, and about the, the eight points of as you're doing trending, between trying, trying to find out i- if there's a trend going on, but not going out of the deviation.
Craig Yeah. What's called living in the normal.
Dino Living in the normal. Exactly. Yeah, there you go. And I thought that was really good, the way she, she,kind of laid that out, that they're able to actually, be in there enough to do what they need to do, but without becoming visible.
Craig Yeah It was, it was fanta- I, I agree with you.
Craig And her, her point of that, those eight points of ear... Let's call it early detection. she had a terminology for it, but it was where the, the adversary was living in the norm and they weren't [00:04:00] triggering any events. But you could see eight different points on that plot that were trending to give you a little more advanced notice that something was going to happen.
Dino Right. Worthy of an investigation.
Craig Yes, that is correct.
Dino Right. If, if you see those, that actually happened. So I th- I thought that piece was really, it was pretty good. I also thought the one that, that Kevin Kumpf gave in regards of, the, everybody talks about the triad, right? The AIC and the CIA, right?
Dino AIC being, the, the IT world, it's about confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Whereas in the OT world, availability's outside of safety, it's job one, then integrity, then confidentiality. And, and what Kevin was, was really focused on was the, the C might be more important than we, than we re- realize in the OT world.
Dino And he's gave a couple different analogies, and it's all about data, right? We talk about data, but it's the [00:05:00] context of that data. Like, he gave an example of you take Social Security numbers, right? And if you have one database table that's just got Social Security numbers in it with no hashes or anything, just the numbers-
Craig Nine raw digits
Dino right. And there's one, and then you have another one that's just got... And that's completely separate that's got the names, and then you have another one that's got date of birth, right? Looking at those independently doesn't really tell you anything. It's just data. But if you're able to put them together, and this gets back to the, what AI is able to do, well now all of a sudden now you have, information, right?
Dino Data versus information. Information, now I've got serial number or Social Security number, I have date of birth, and I have a name, right? And, and so in the i- in the cybersecurity realm, we're, we're... We don't really do a very good job of everybody says data, data, data, but it's what about the information, right?
Dino How can I piece together your recipe, right? Or your process, right? I mean, he talked about Coca-Cola a [00:06:00] little bit too, about how they've always been able to keep their stuff secret. But if somebody had enough information and data about your process and the amount of product that you use and how long you might mix and blend it or cook it or s- ferment it, so however you would go through that, that recipe model that I would be able to build, well, maybe I can reverse engineer That, that recipe, right?
Craig Be the same thing for, he mentioned in that same thing, KFC's 31 original spices. if you know the, the recipe within the PLCs and you put, five pounds of this and 12 gallons of that and 15 ounces of this and 35 pounds of something else, but you know that it's making a 500-pound batch or whatever the numbers are, then you can reverse engineer it.
Craig And you have that secret recipe. And I guess his point which stood out to me is, organizations keep those... that IP or [00:07:00] those trademark things locked in a safe, but they will put the exact recipe in a PLC or a, a, some sort of program to make it in the process area, and they don't view that as IP.
Craig But it's the exact same thing, it's just on a big scale.
Dino Right. Yeah. And so, And so what do you... And, and you and I both know because of working in the industry, for the last decade, me f- f- even longer, that, we, we don't have... It's like the, the semiconductor company, you know, doesn't have cybersecurity tools in place.
Dino Can't get them to afford it, right? They, they wouldn't pay for it. So, and the point is, it, it's more than, yeah, you gotta being able to pay for it, but you also have to have the practice, right? You have to have the skills and the resources to,be able to, build a, a- an organization that can either...
Dino that can help you secure and [00:08:00] protect your environment, right? And, and so i- it's a challenge. It's still a challenge for organizations that are out there. some of them have either been directly hit and started doing something, but, And then you have others that have been impacted via supply chain.
Dino Because if somebody else has been hit, it's impacting their ability to deliver product or, re- receive product, whatever the case may be. And then you have conversion costs and loss that, your, your suppliers are incurring because they're not able to receive the goods that they're sending you to make whatever it is you're making.
Dino So, and, and then the other thing that I, that I enjoy, I thought was really important was there was a panel. and one of the questions, and, and we all... We've talked about this numerous times in our podcast is IT/OT convergence, right? I mean, what does that mean? And, one of the,gentlemen on the panel sitting for critical infrastructure in the, in the,wastewater water business talked about why do we, why do we have to call it IT and OT?
Dino Immediately as soon as you say that, you're creating two different- [00:09:00] conversations. He goes, "Why can't we just call it technology, right? Got information technology, got OT, operational technology. Why can't we just call it technology, right?" 'cause,working in this industry for, for decades,IT's always been trying to eradicate what they wanna call shadow IT groups, right?
Dino you're never gonna get rid of the, the shadow IT if that's the way you view the OT people. You're just not. And the reason why I can say that earnestly and honestly, is because we work obviously in the automation and control manufacturing space, and we don't work with IT, generally speaking. We do not, right?
Dino And we're the ones that are managing and maintaining and building and engineering and architecting your plant floor. and IT is, is rarely part of the conversation. And, and so you're already, you're, you're already going down a path where you're providing technology, not as a shadow group, but as, as a primary source of revenue-generating systems for manufacturing environments, right?
Dino and you're never gonna change that. You're, you're just not. And s- [00:10:00] and so recognize that. And, and so the, the quicker you can assimilate as, as a, just a technology Group and not try to b- break it acro- across OT and IT that y- you might actually be able to do better. 'Cause we've witnessed that, right?
Dino We've seen when you have an IT and O- or OT organization that work really, really well together, and it's not always the case, right? I mean, there's still an adversarial relationship between a lot of these groups. but when we find companies where IT and OT are just really tightly integrated, aligned, transparent, collaborative, those are always the, the, the best to work with, right?
Dino And we just wish we could see more of them.
Craig But again, everybody wins when we work together. It's, that's not a, that's not a misnomer. That's a fact. We all see it. Clients see it. Vendors see it. Everybody does.
Dino Right. And, and, and the other thing is, is the technology companies that are supplying the technology, forget the integrators for ex- for, for a minute, and you just think about [00:11:00] the develop- the software companies and the hardware companies, just the ones that are selling the tech, whether they're selling direct or selling through their channel and their partners are, are, are not helping that case per se.
Dino Their, their, their goal is to work with whoever they can get to listen to them, that they can build a relationship with. It's not to bring the two groups together, right? That's not their intent. Their goal is to sell their tech, and they don't care who buys it on the client side. It doesn't matter to them whether you got a great relationship between IT and OT.
Dino It, it does- doesn't matter to them. Their, their goal, they're coin operated and they're, and they're really focused on just making the sale of the tech.
Craig Yeah. So you're... So we do see that in the majority of the cases. Some truly realize the value of ARR and that renewal at the end because, again, we've seen clients that have a technology that was dropped off by vendor, and they never learned to [00:12:00] use it, operationalize it.
Craig Three years later, they're like, "We're not, we're not renewing this. We're gonna buy a new tool." And the thought is, okay, so you're gonna do... You're gonna buy a new tool, and you're gonna do nothing with the new tool, and you're gonna expect a different result? That, that doesn't, it doesn't work that way. So they're starting to recognize that they need that localization.
Craig They need the adoption from the OT side, and they are trying to help encourage that through that sales motion where they can. But you're right. Most are drop, sell, move to the next.
Dino Right. Right. And the integrators are the ones that are bringing a lot of this tech in, right? I need a new packaging line. I'm doing a brownfield, greenfield expansion, lifestyle place, whatever it may be.
Dino we do not see these strategies being developed through, all the way through into our, scope of work. Right? We're receiving proposals, writing proposals. There's nothing in there [00:13:00] outlining. It's like, "Oh, you're a big Fortinet shop or you're a big Palo Alto shop, you're a big Cisco shop, right? Let's just talk about them for a second."
Dino We don't see their tech being pushed down in scope into the control systems where we're putting in networks to d- to do segmentation, in order to put in firewalls, in order to be able to control that traffic at the application level. That is part of our work that we're doing, And, and if you think you're gonna come back and do it later, well, then you're gonna spend, 4X, 5X to try to get that done.
Dino You can't afford it. You can't justify it. it's like one of the, one of the panelists said, "Security doesn't sell," right? It just doesn't, right? And at the same time, you're not really driving a strategy forward on how you can, build defense in depth and harden your security posture at the edge of your environment where these integrators are operating within your environment.
Dino You're just not doing it, right? If we did, we, we would, we would know. We would see it. In, in, in [00:14:00] the, thousands of proposals that we're going through every year,there's, there's not... Very rarely is there language in there to say, "Here's how I want my network built. Here's the standard switching platform I want in there.
Dino Here's the re- the secure remote access technology I want to use, right, in order to gain access in here. And I, and I need it above and beyond just a network layer, above a VPN, RDP, TeamViewer," w- They need to do better than just that, right? And, and it really... And you have to get back to that IT/OT conundrum of convergence and just how do you just lump it into a technology group and get...
Dino As I like to say, get all the liars in the same room, as you're going through this, and, and, and so, I, I mean, that, that, that would be part of the messaging that I would've saw from the cybersecurity conference. there's great tech out there, and it's not a technical issue in most cases.
Dino It is primarily a, a people and process challenge.
Craig It is. Yeah. No, you're right. a coup- couple [00:15:00] things that, that I, that I, I kind of took away. There were, there were three sessions that really kind of stood out to me. One of them, there was an individual lady who is in the security protection business where she had a 20-plus-year stint as a Secret Service agent protecting the president.
Craig And so she did that, and then she migrated over. Now she does protection detail for, let's call them high net worth individuals, CEOs of, of tech companies, of pharmaceutical companies that are in the spotlight that are really kind of similar in nature to protecting the OT critical assets. You have a critical jewel, a, a president, a CEO, and then how that defense in depth applies and the, the techniques that they use that should be applied [00:16:00] in general to protecting, and the approach that she used from across the industry of, understand where your gaps are, what are they, which gaps can you mitigate, which gaps can you elimi-eliminate?
Craig How can you take and really apply this across your landscape and, remove and reduce the noise from some of the other stuff, whether that's the IDSs and truly try and boil that down to what's important, what are my critical assets, how do I protect those, what does my ecosystem look like? And, and that thought process of using that People process in there, and the one thing that she really spoke to me about was on this session, it's the incident response.
Craig You need to have an IR [00:17:00] plan. It needs to be practiced, and it doesn't need to be practiced at 9:30 on a Tuesday. It needs to be practiced on a weekend when you're at home. You're not in the office. Do you have your stuff with you if you happen to be at dinner with your family when you get a phone call that says, "We just got breached."
Craig How are you gonna respond? Is it 6:30 on a Thursday? Is it Sunday afternoon at 2:00 when you're watching football game or whatever? And practice that similar to what we all used to do as a child in elementary and middle school from a fire drill, from a tornado drill, from an earthquake drill, what every month we would have that, and they built that into us so that it's muscle memory.
Craig And you knew what to do, who to call, how to react, where to go, and it's gotta be part of the action. It's not just the tech. It's not [00:18:00] just the IDS. It's not just the IPS. It's not just the firewalls or the DMZ. It's the whole thing, the entire perimeter. And she equated it to, when we're protecting an asset, it's their home, it's their home environment, it's their children, it's their children's school, it's their vacation home.
Craig It's everywhere they are. Again, no different than in a manufacturing site, whether you have multiple facilities, you've got offsite facilities. Your crown jewels are more important than your some less important process cells. And how do you make sure that you're looking at it holistically? That was a really interesting concept to me, and it goes back to defense in depth.
Craig Control the layers that you can, mitigate where possible, and be aware, put compensating controls in where you cannot do something right now
Dino Yeah. Well, they should do it, from an [00:19:00] OT perspective, that should be part of your startup and commissioning, right? And, and we never see that, right?
Dino I mean, we- there's not even IR plan language in, the proposals and scope of work, right? To, to, 'cause we, we heard a lot about pen testing. Certain groups, they do pen testing, and I think they've gotten better at trying not to be too disruptive when it comes to,if you can get into the control system environment to, to, not continue to, to push further down, but let them know that, hey, we were able to get in, and then sit down and have that conversation.
Dino But again, you're not bringing all the parties to the table. You're not bringing that integrator in, th- who's probably doing a lot of maintenance and support, might be in a startup, might be in the middle of doing some integration project on the plant floor, are never a part of these conversations. And getting to the point, her point is you got to put, bring them all in.
Dino Again, back again, all the liars in the same room. So it, it again, you gotta move away from this IT/OT mindset and, and move it into a [00:20:00] technology realm and, and drive it from that angle. And you gotta bring all the people to the table that touch this stuff, right? Not have ownership and responsibility, like we always say, the asset owners, but those that are responsible for, for the tech that's being used, the processes that are being implemented, And, and in the organization, h- how, how are you gonna get them all on the same page? I'm sure larger companies think they're probably doing that, but then, you and I both seen big companies that, that have all the money in the world they need still not be able to, to secure and protect their environment.
Craig Yeah. And, and I've heard a... I heard a couple times this week where the, that same thread, it's, how do we get everybody on the same page? The CISO has a different agenda than a CIO, and some organizations are looking at a digital transformation officer where that transformation within the organization of conver- combining and merging those organizations and looking at it holistically from an [00:21:00] enterprise standpoint fall to one person who has not only the responsibility, but the authority in situations to affect that change.
Craig Because a- as you, as and I say this all the time, a CISO has responsibility. He's got no authority. He cannot get down and walk onto a plant and say, "We need you to shut it down because we're gonna do X" because there are different lines of responsibility.
Dino Well, I even heard that, right? Somebody was trying to offer a very large,logistics company that was at the event who, who was begging for the CISO to, to meet with them on the plant floor.
Dino And, and he could never get that, that CISO to show up, and he, he'd asked for, for years to, "I'll meet you wherever you want, To go to one of these sites. Let me show you what this stuff is. Let me show you what we're trying to do. Let me show you what we're up against." And he could never,get him to, to, to, to make it to the site.
Dino and of course, the other thing too, the CISO from the, the semi company, and we've known this, all [00:22:00] she did was just, it validated is the tenure for CISOs are short. 26 months, right? And so again, when you have, whether you have several facilities or 100 plus facilities, there's no way that that individual is going to be able to make effective change across that organization at scale.
Dino They're just not, because they're just not there long enough. And so the position they take is back to ownership. They're, they're always looking for their, their line, their demarcation. Where's, where's m- where do I stop? Where does my res- to, to, to your point, I have responsibility, I have the authority, but where does my authority stop?
Dino And that's where I'm gonna stop. And then I'm gonna wave it off to, well, those people over there need to go figure it out, right? Again, you're back to that IT/OT split Yeah.
Craig Yep. Another topic that I thought was very interesting is there was a, a, a consultant that gave a presentation on the changing landscape of CMMC, [00:23:00] which applies to the Department of Defense or the, the-
Dino Department of War?
Craig Yeah, Department of War, whatever it's called. The Department of War and the supply chain and how they must comply with certain requirements of, of what they're looking at. And it was, they've put a pause on parts of it, and they've kept other parts the same, and they initially were trying to de-scope the OT because they're like, "It's not important."
Craig And part of this pause and change is they brought back into scope the OT networking and the OT environment that is doing the production because of what you just said earlier about the data in those programs that is the same as data in an IT environment. It's... The, the IP address, no matter where you keep it, is still data, but when put together, it's [00:24:00] information, and they're recognizing that.
Craig So now part of that initiative, and her thought was they were going to require continuous monitoring of these networks in all requirements, or that individual organization would lose their status to deliver and supply to the DoD.
Dino Yeah. Well, it's back to living in the normal, right? How, how... If you're not doing the continuous monitoring, how are you gonna know, right?
Dino Right? Yeah. And, and, and all of them, they're, they're... Most... I wouldn't say most. Everybody we talked to believed that AI is really gonna change this landscape big, in a big way. For, for the things that we're just now talking about in data and infor- information creating context with that, and just being able to, get down to the PLC, right?
Dino Having an agent that's making its way into trying to extract information from, from a PLC, right? [00:25:00] And, and none of these environments are ready f- for this. Their infrastructure isn't there. Their security apparatus isn't there. Their, their expertise, knowledge, resources aren't there. The money is, is not there.
Dino and so it, it's really gonna... It's, it's gonna be really interesting to see how this shapes up. And if you don't, as a, as a, as a manufacturer, if you don't start working with your partners, and I'm not talking about your IT partners in general. I mean, they're, they're a part of it, don't get me wrong. But you gotta start talking to your integrators and these OEMs To build these SKUs and these machine centers and these plants, right?
Dino If you're not figuring out how to get them on the same page as you and where you're headed, you're never gonna solve this problem.
Craig You mentioned AI. One of the sessions I sat in, they were talking about agentic AI and how these agents are able to look at the landscape, look at the assets, look at the vulnerabilities for each [00:26:00] asset that's there, and figure out automatically how they can string them together to form a long chain and get into an environment.
Craig What used to take, and this, this, presenter said what would normally take a month is now being done in minutes. So to your point, the adversaries are using AI better in some cases than we are to defend, and they are taking the zero days or the vulnerabilities and they're bringing them down, so now you don't have 30, 45 days, 60 days to patch, to respond, to secure your environment.
Craig You have a matter of days or hours before someone, either agent or individual, is exploiting that in the wild. And to me, that is the key, is [00:27:00] take... It's not changing the process, it's how fast the technology is changing and what's happening.
Dino And we're doing it, right? I mean, we, we are putting s- some forms of, of AI- In these environments with these OTIDS platforms, right?
Dino The machine learning that they do, not just so much machine learning and getting information on make, model, firmware, But it- but it's also what's communicating with what, right? What's the critical PLC in this plant, or which- how many of them are? Just based on the nature of what it's doing, what it's communicating with, and where it sits within the process, and says, "These three PLCs are really critical to this plant."
Dino Right? You lose either one of these, and you're down, right? So, and, and so we're able to map that out today with just the, the cybersecurity OTIDS platforms that we use as part of our practice in the work that we're doing. We- we've- we're already doing it, right? And, [00:28:00] and, and we're- we're the white hats, right?
Dino We're the ones that are not trying to be malicious, right? We're in there trying to help you really get a gr- a, a base understanding, a baseline of your environment, right? How many assets do you have? Where are they at? What do they do? What are the risk and vulnerabilities associated with them? Do you have malware in here?
Dino Do you have rogue assets in here? Do you have malicious IP in here? Do you have segmentation in your network? we uncover that stuff usually in the first few days, a week we're on site, And, and then it floats all this stuff up that it says, okay, y- which ones are gonna be your longer term, end-of-life, end-of-support assets, which is another big one.
Dino to how, how are you gonna start mapping to move forward, to get better every day, as we used to say way back in the day when you and I started this back in the teens, is how are you gonna get better every day?
Craig Right. Those are table stakes, Odino, and organizations aren't... So there's a, there's a difference.
Craig And I had a conversation with a manufacturer that makes prosthetics for knee replacement, hip replacement, those type stuff that go in people. And, they're going [00:29:00] through a transformation of trying to do more segmentation, more protection, but they do not have an identification technology in there.
Craig I'm like, "Well, those tools will give you the roadmap so that you can better micro-segment." "Well, we, we think that we don't need that, and it's a s- budget limitation restriction, and we need to do this first." I'm like, I'm just, I, I was questioning the process. I get it. I understand you can do what you can do within the limitations you have, but to me it didn't make a lot of sense.
Dino Well, it's like that logistics company, right? They're talking about life-saving drugs that they have in their environment to ship, right? The guy that's trying to get his, his CISO to come down and, and, and take a look at the challenges and the problems that they're having, things that they need to solve.
Dino And, and it's just like the, the CISO didn't [00:30:00] care. It's like, if anything happens to this particular, warehousing environment that's housing a billion dollars worth of life-saving medications, that has a shelf life, right? Or organs. The other thing they do is they move, they move organs, right?
Dino And, and again, they're not able to, to Have a discussion as a, as a whole organization on how to solve some of these problems
Craig That's what I... That is a classic example of someone that's looking to check a box versus getting better. There's a difference. There's a different philosophy, a different cost structure, a different organizational culture.
Craig If you're looking to check a box, honestly, I don't even wanna help you. I, I want to work with clients that truly are looking to make a difference and improve their environment. If you wanna check a box, just start filling out the survey. That's not getting you anywhere. That, and that is not helping the industry at [00:31:00] all.
Dino Right. Yeah. it's, it's kinda like a families, right? It's like, well, this is how our family is, and this is how, how we educate our, our children, and this is how we, we, we live our life. And that neighbor over there, there's, they're different. They can raise their children as they see fit and, and live their life the way that they want.
Dino Not recognize, it's like, no, you guys are all the same family. All right? You're all in the same community. Not individuals, but, but that's exactly how they operate in these, with, in, in these companies. They, they act as different families, and they, they protect their own.
Craig Yeah. No, you're right. But overall, I think the conference was very, very beneficial.
Craig Again, some of the, the clients that we saw diverse across all industries. Same with the vendors. The same, normal vendors that you would expect to be there, from intrusion prevention to intrusion protect-tection, to some newer ones, to the remote access, zero [00:32:00] trust. They were all there, and they were present.
Craig And they, it's, it's important, but the conversations that were happening in the sessions from the asset owners or for, from the individuals of how to try and improve the ecosystem as a whole and how we have to go and, and get better as together, that better together story was, was really a theme and was really important
Dino Well, y- you gotta stay on top of it is all what, is, is what I would take away.
Dino I mean, just b- because of AI, I mean, things are advancing rapidly. so you gotta stay plugged in. If this is, if this is where you wanna live and, and breathe and protect your, your, your, your community, i.e. your company, and what it is that it does, y- you need to educate yourself. And you've got... I think you need to, to, to break down that barrier between IT and OT.
Dino Maybe not even call it IT and OT anymore, [00:33:00] And just call it technology, right?
Craig That it, it's back to the mind shift, and I heard that a couple times. It's, you have... It's gotta go from a reactive to a proactive. You have to begin looking at the early warning signs, like the CISO said from the, chip fabrication company.
Craig How do you get left of boom farther than you are today? It's, it's, you gotta shift, you gotta change the way that we look at it in general. So great, great conversation. It was good conference. Lots of information. Hopefully there's more on it later, but yeah, overall, I was very pleased.
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About Industrial Cyber Security Insider
Industrial Cybersecurity Insider brings clarity to one of the most urgent gaps in manufacturing and critical infrastructure: the divide between IT and OT. Hosts Craig and Dino talk with plant leaders, engineers, and security practitioners about protecting industrial operations in the real world — practical conversations for the people responsible for keeping production running and secure.