By Eric Forner, Armexa Co-Founder and CTO
Today one of the most common and critical missteps in OT cybersecurity is focusing on vulnerabilities without considering the real process risks they pose.
It’s not that vulnerabilities aren’t important or that professionals lack the ability to fix them. The real issue lies in the context – or the lack thereof. This leads to misaligned priorities and ineffective security measures that can leave an organization exposed and inefficient.
Failure to Focus on the Big Picture: The Three Major Consequences
- Resource Misallocation
When you focus on vulnerabilities without context, it’s easy to end up misallocating resources. Imagine spending a lot of time and money fixing minor issues that pose minimal risk, while the more significant threats to your critical infrastructure go unaddressed. This misalignment can drain your budget and manpower, leaving you unprepared for the more substantial risks. It’s like locking every window in your house but forgetting to secure the front door.
Prioritizing vulnerabilities based on real business risks ensures that your resources are used effectively, protecting what matters most.
- Increased Likelihood of Exploitation
Ignoring the bigger picture can lead to critical systems being overlooked, even if they have significant vulnerabilities. Attackers often look for the path of least resistance, so leaving these critical systems exposed increases the likelihood that they’ll be targeted.
By prioritizing vulnerabilities based on their actual risk, you can better defend your most crucial systems.
- Operational Inefficiencies
When you don’t consider how security measures fit into the bigger picture, you might end up causing more harm than good. Imagine putting security controls in place that end up slowing down your entire operation. It’s like putting a lock on a door everyone needs to use constantly. Sure, it’s more secure, but now everyone’s stuck fumbling with keys all day. This can lead to delays, frustration, and even downtime, which nobody wants.
In short, make it easier to do the right thing than forcing folks to find ways around your security controls.
This typically happens because it’s easier to quantify and address individual vulnerabilities. This is true for many cybersecurity professionals, but it’s especially true in environments where there are numerous systems and components to manage. It’s simpler to tick off a list of vulnerabilities than to conduct a thorough risk assessment that considers the business impact.
The Root Causes of This Misalignment
Reason #1: Lack of Comprehensive Risk Assessment
Many organizations don’t conduct in-depth risk assessments that align cybersecurity priorities with business processes. Without a clear understanding of how vulnerabilities impact critical operations, it’s impossible to prioritize them effectively.
Reason #2: Pressure to Show Quick Wins on Irrelevant Technology
There’s often pressure to demonstrate immediate results, leading to a focus on easily identifiable vulnerabilities rather than deeper, more complex risks. Quick fixes are great and show progress is being made, just make sure that they actually reduce risk instead of merely increasing the technical debt of the environment.
Reason #3: Siloed Departments
When cybersecurity is managed separately from operational teams, there’s a disconnect between identifying vulnerabilities and understanding their real-world impact. This separation can lead to security measures that are technically sound but operationally impractical.
How Can We Prevent This Issue?
It all comes down to integrating vulnerability management with a consequence-driven risk analysis. Instead of treating vulnerabilities as isolated issues, consider their potential impact on your critical processes.
Perform Consequence-Driven Risk Analysis
Evaluate the potential impact of vulnerabilities on your business processes and prioritize them based on this analysis. This means looking beyond the technical severity of a vulnerability to understand its potential consequences on your operations.
Align Cybersecurity with Business Objectives
Ensure that your cybersecurity strategy is aligned with your business objectives and operational priorities. This alignment helps to ensure that security measures support, rather than hinder, your overall business goals.
Engage Cross-Functional Teams
Work closely with operational teams to understand the real-world implications of vulnerabilities and to develop effective mitigation strategies. This collaboration helps to ensure that security measures are both effective and practical, minimizing disruptions to daily operations.
Conclusion
By shifting the focus from isolated vulnerabilities to a broader, consequence-driven risk analysis, IT/OT professionals can ensure that cybersecurity measures are aligned with the real-world needs of their operations.
This approach not only optimizes resource allocation but also enhances overall security and operational efficiency. Remember, it’s not about locking every window; it’s about securing the entire house in a way that keeps everything running smoothly.
