Remote - M2M 2014 - (Page 12)

Feature Article SDN-Based Solutions Strengthen Cyber Security in Industrial Control Infrastructure Jay Friedman, President Distrix, Inc. There's a time-honored adage that goes, "When you're through changing, you're through." As the pace of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) development accelerates, and the need to close the IT/OT divide becomes ever more important in applications involving machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, the Internet of Everything (IoE), and industrial control networks, this adage resonates more deeply than ever. Far more important than the willingness to change, however, is a clear understanding of how technological challenges are evolving and what kinds of changes we need to make in order to remain successful long term. With industrial control systems, where the close collaboration of IT and OT is essential, two emerging trends warrant special attention. The first involves widely adopted ICS/SCADA systems, which run much of the global industrial infrastructure and sit outside traditional IT data center networks. Today, the pressure to leverage the data collected by these systems to reduce both operating and capital costs is growing dramatically. At the same time, these systems need to evolve to address the rapidly growing adoption of M2M communications if we're going to realize the vision of "The Industrial Internet of Things." On one hand, the stage is being set for more centralized management with intelligent systems gleaning insights from analytics using data extracted from operational devices to provide greater M2M control. This also paves the way for something unprecedented that's expected to occur in the next few years, hundreds of billions of new devices being added to networks worldwide. On the other hand, however, ICS/SCADA systems are also giving these organizations additional headaches, foremost among them being the security issues they present. Because they sit outside the traditional IT datacenter, and because most were originally designed to be closed systems not accessible from the outside, they're especially vulnerable to cyber attacks. The second trend is one that seems to grab the headlines several times every week: the increasing frequency of cyber attacks on major institutions in areas ranging from utilities to the factory floor operations, as well as across many industries. One attack that caused a major stir in late 2013, for example, was the massive breach at the US retailer Target that put the personal data of more than 100 million of the company's shoppers at risk. Earlier that year, experts from the security firm Cylance demonstrated how it would be relatively easy to break into tens of thousands of ICS systems, allowing hackers to take control of building heating systems, elevators and other industrial equipment and, in some cases, to cause these systems to malfunction. In fact, one of these experts, Billy Rios of Cylance had previously compared the security of these systems to Apple's iTunes, calling the security software of the entertainment site "more robust than most ICS software." Also in 2013, a report from the US Congress stated that sophisticated cyber saboteurs might already be plotting to trigger a massive blackout across the country. One utility company even shared with congressional investigators that, in a typical month, it must contend with a mind-boggling 10,000 plus cyber attacks. 12 www.RemoteMagazine.com Yes, the writing is on the wall. In fact, we might even turn that writing into flashing neon lights on a billboard: "As ICS/SCADA systems remain vulnerable to cyber attacks, the number and severity of these attacks continues to grow." SDN Can Strengthen Cyber Security While many who've considered these issues have presented helpful insights and, in some cases, suggested solutions, we haven't yet achieved any real consensus about what to do. However, one of the most promising advances in network technology is software defined networking (SDN). The reality of SDN, whether used for remote on-site network management, is that it offers enormous potential value for utilities, factories, retailers, and numerous other organizations in several areas, notably security. In a nutshell, SDN enables administrators to manage network services by decoupling the system that makes decisions about where traffic is sent (the control plane) from the underlying systems that forward traffic to the selected destination (the data plane). In addition to reducing the cost of managing a large, remote network, SDN can benefit industrial control systems in several other ways. One is by simplifying the tasks of provisioning and maintaining network resources. This not only lowers the cost of network management, but it also reduces the need to constantly reconfigure networks, a process that's both time consuming and prone to error. Another is by leveraging its sophisticated traffic-management and linkbonding capabilities to make networks far more flexible, responsive and resilient. By using built-in traffic-engineering algorithms, managers can prioritize traffic by application, protocol or port. Or, by employing store-andforward features, they can assure that all data gets to the proper destinations while the network also optimizes bandwidth utilization. A third benefit critical to this discussion is SDN's ability to offer significantly higher levels of network security for both IT and OT control system networks in order to, as technologists at Distrix like to say, reduce the "attack surface" the opportunities for hackers to breech a network's security. Particularly challenging in M2M applications and environments using industrial control systems is that many rely on huge investments previously made in older, legacy radio-telemetry communication and devices. What's particularly compelling is the ability of the SDN approach to address security issues not simply on one front or another, but on multiple fronts. This might sound overly diligent, it may even seem like overkill to some, but for security personnel who are the first to be criticized whenever a systems breech occurs, there can never be too much diligence. Six Effective SDN Security Strategies Here are six strategies we've found that have proven to be particularly effective for network administrators using SDN to combat security threats: 1. "Virtualize" Networks - SDN operates as an overlay, which abstracts the network from the underlying network hardware, relying on the hardware only for transport. When traveling over public or private networks, this virtualization makes it more difficult for hackers to eavesdrop or gain access to the virtual network. http://www.RemoteMagazine.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Remote - M2M 2014

Remote - M2M 2014
Editor's Choice
When Does it Makes Sense to Transition to Wireless?
Intelligent Machinery Requires Comprehensive Wireless M2M Communications
Improving M2M Communications with Wireless
Driving the Connected Car - a New World of Mobility
SDN-Based Solutions Strengthen Cyber Security in Industrial Control Infrastructure
Electric Vehicles: Where Telematics, Smart Grid and Mobile Payments Converge
Powering Today’s Wireless Sensors
M2M Visions of 2020
Satellite Communications Takes the Edge out of Risky Mining Operations
New Products
Industry News

Remote - M2M 2014