What is Critical Infrastructure?
Critical infrastructure is a term used to describe assets that are essential for the functioning of a society and economy.
What is Critical Infrastructure Protection?
Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) relates to the preparedness and ability to respond to serious incidents that involve the critical infrastructure of a region or nation. It recognizes certain parts of a country's infrastructure as critical to national and economic security, and the steps required to protect it.
The U.S. Presidential Directive PDD-63 of May 1998 set up a national program of "Critical Infrastructure Protection". In Europe, there is a similar directive called the European Programme for Critical Infrastructure Protection (EPCIP).
This was updated on December 17, 2003, by President Bush through Homeland Security Presidential Directive HSPD-7 for Critical Infrastructure Identification, Prioritization, and Protection. The directive describes the U.S. as having some critical infrastructure that is so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety.
Critical Infrastructure Protection Sectors
There are 16 sectors defined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as critical infrastructure:
Healthcare and Public Health
Nuclear Reactors, Materials, and Waste
Water and Wastewater Systems
Critical Infrastructure Protection Requirements
With the proliferation of zero-day attacks and the rapid expansion of the attack surface, cybersecurity professionals are extraordinarily busy. To help prioritize workload and mitigate backlogs, both current and prospective workers must be efficient in the responsibilities and technical proficiencies most applicable to critical infrastructure environments, including:
Creating and maintaining
secure data exchange
processes between
segregated networks
Ensuring proper device
posture checks to determine
which devices can access
which organization assets
and segregated networks
Disarming content that has
potential for carrying malware
from application files or
emails
Critical Infrastructure Protection Skills
A major critical infrastructure protection (CIP) vulnerability is the cybersecurity skills gap – an unprecedented predicament at a time when there are up to 3.5 million open cybersecurity jobs worldwide. Why is the lack of people such a vulnerability? Within all 16 critical infrastructure sectors, the confidentiality, integrity and availability of networks, systems and equipment are of the utmost importance. Unexpected downtime is not only unacceptable, but it can be dangerous, destructive and costly. The same can be said for unauthorized access, as it can be very difficult to find an adversary’s footprint and root them out once they have bypassed security controls and entered into a system or network.
ICS environments can also serve as a gateway into enterprise and government IT networks, which frequently maintain incredibly sensitive IP, company and customer data, as well as classified national security information. Simply put, it is because of such high stakes that critical infrastructure organizations need an abundance of qualified, highly skilled cybersecurity pros 24/7/365 to help identify, mitigate and remediate threats of all types.
Within critical infrastructure specifically, there is no universally accepted number of current or projected job openings; however, an aging OT workforce of non-digital natives combined with the increase in threat frequency and sophistication suggests that there is no shortage of opportunities. In fact, a very basic search of Indeed and LinkedIn provides thousands of open positions.
The OPSWAT Academy provides a modern-day cybersecurity training program to help address the CIP cybersecurity skills shortage through courses that promote the best practices and practical approaches successfully implemented in the most secure critical infrastructure environments.
Critical Infrastructure Protection Technologies
The following 12 technologies are necessary to ensure an organization can address all aspects of Critical Infrastructure protection.
Deep CDR
Content disarm and reconstruction
(CDR) breaks a file into its smallest
components and removes any and
every potential threat. The technology
scrubs away hidden files or messages
maliciously embedded within any file
type, leaving the final disarmed file
to look and behave exactly as the file
should. More about Deep CDR.
Proactive DLP
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) technology
is used to detect and block financial
or personally identifiable information
(PII). Rather than blocking files and
leaving teams high-and-dry, Proactive
DLP technology suppresses sensitive
information with automatic document
redaction, metadata removal, or
watermark addition. More about Proactive DLP.
Multiscanning
Multiscanning technology provides
advanced threat detection and
prevention. Multiscanning exponentially
increases malware detection rates,
decreases outbreak detection times,
and provides resiliency to anti-malware
vendor issues by deploying up to 30 anti-malware engines. More about Multiscanning.
File-based Vulnerability
This technology detects application and file-based vulnerabilities before they are installed. It allows organizations to correlate vulnerabilities to software components, product installers, firmware packages, and many other types of binary files which are commonly collected from a vast community of users. More about file-based vulnerability.
Threat Intelligence
Effectively and intelligently analyzing
patterns of malicious content is
paramount to preventing outbreaks or
stopping them in critical infrastructure
environments. Threat intelligence
technology analyzes data from
thousands of devices, analyzing data
points for binary reputation, vulnerable
applications, malware analysis reports,
Portable Executable or PE info, static
and dynamic analysis, IP/URL reputation, and most importantly, the correlations
between them. More about Threat Intelligence.
Sandbox
Due to the criticality of maintaining
operational efficiency in critical
infrastructure environments, sandboxes
are often used to run third-party software
and untested code as a means to reduce
risk. This allows CIP cyber pros to test
content without giving it access to
mission critical networks and servers. More about OPSWAT Sandbox.
Endpoint Compliance
Enables organizations to detect, assess
and remediate device applications that
do not comply with a set of security
and operational policies created and
enforced. It helps to minimize the spread
of a malware infection and decrease
the probability of data loss in the
organization. More about Endpoint Compliance technology.
Endpoint Vulnerability Assessment
Strengthens the security of endpoints by
confirming all applications are running
on their most updated versions. Once
vulnerabilities are identified, automatic
patching can remediate them as soon as
possible. This can also be done manually
by retrieving the available remediations
and choosing the update which best suits
the organization's needs. More about Endpoint Vulnerability Assessment.
Endpoint Malware Detection
Examines the running processes and
their loaded libraries in order to provide a quick assessment of the endpoint and
to determine if any suspicious processes
are currently running. This is especially
important for remote facilities with many
third-party visitors. More about Endpoint Malware Detection.
Endpoint Application Removal
Allows for the removal of security
applications like AV and firewalls as well
as the removal of potentially unwanted
applications (PUA). It allows systems
admins to prevent users from accessing
some popular and legitimate applications
that are not compliant with the work
environment. More about Endpoint Application Removal.
Data Protection
Incorporating removable media
protection, anti-keylogger and
anti-screen capture technologies,
data protection technology helps
organizations prevent data loss and file-based attacks on endpoints. It does so
by blocking users’ access to removable
media, such as USBs or smart phones,
or allowing access to only allowlisted
processes. More about Data Protection technology.
BEC Attack Detection and Prevention
Increase threat detection rates up
to 99%, and prevent BEC attacks by
deploying an advanced email gateway
security layer with zero-day prevention
technology. Deploy spam filtering
and anti-phishing to protect against
malware outbreaks.