Cyber Threats Grow as AI and IT/OT Converge...Industry Pledges More Security Investment
TECHWORLD ·
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According to a Rockwell Automation report, industrial companies are expanding cybersecurity investment.
90% of the industrial companies surveyed were confident in their ability to prevent and block incidents and recover after an incident, while 46% experienced a cybersecurity incident in the past year.
The report said that as IT/OT connectivity expands and AI is adopted, new vulnerabilities are increasing, and cybersecurity must be managed as a core element of business strategy and resilience.
As IT and OT connectivity expands on industrial sites and AI adoption spreads, cybersecurity has emerged as a core element of enterprise operational resilience. Against this backdrop, industrial companies are increasing cybersecurity investment, and confidence in their response capabilities has also risen.
Rockwell Automation released a report on the 23rd. The report said industrial companies are expanding their investment in cybersecurity.
At the same time, confidence in industrial companies' response capabilities was also found to be high. 90% of the industrial companies surveyed said they were confident in their ability to prevent and block incidents and recover after an incident.
However, actual cybersecurity incident experience was also found to be substantial. 46% of the industrial companies surveyed said they had experienced a cybersecurity incident in the past year.
Based on these results, the report noted that simply investing in security technology alone makes it difficult to prevent operational disruptions and secure resilience for production continuity. Despite greater security investment and high confidence in response capabilities, the fact that actual incident experience was not insignificant showed that cybersecurity is emerging as a core element of enterprise operational resilience.
With the expansion of digital connectivity in manufacturing and industrial sites, cybersecurity is expanding beyond a simple IT issue. The direct areas affected by cybersecurity are productivity, uptime, and business continuity. In this trend, cybersecurity risk is emerging as a major variable in corporate growth.
More than one-third of industrial companies identified cybersecurity risk as a major external factor hindering growth. This means many industrial companies see cybersecurity as an obstacle to growth.
Rick Kount, global director of cybersecurity services at Rockwell Automation, explained that industrial companies recognize that cybersecurity directly affects uptime, continuity, productivity, and growth. He pointed to a situation in which the impact of cybersecurity extends across production operations.
Kount said that technology investment alone cannot build confidence in operational resilience and organizational security posture. He said the condition for true resilience is making cybersecurity an essential part of business strategy. He added that companies that proactively manage risk and prepare for operational disruptions are better positioned to protect operations, sustain production, and secure a competitive advantage.
Companies are increasing cybersecurity investment. 62% of the surveyed companies were found to have already invested in cybersecurity platforms.
Cybersecurity was ranked No. 2 in ROI among technology investment areas, based on respondents. As a result, cybersecurity is increasingly seen not merely as a cost item, but as an investment area that affects business operations and performance.
Along with this shift in perception, 45% of responding companies planned to apply AI and machine learning to cybersecurity initiatives within the next 12 months. AI and machine learning are expected to be used as cybersecurity response tools.
Separately from the trend of rising investment, the expansion of IT/OT convergence is also under way. The expansion of IT/OT convergence is improving operational efficiency.
The expansion of IT/OT convergence was also presented as a factor that improves data utilization. On the other hand, the expansion of IT/OT convergence is also a factor that creates new cybersecurity risks.
At the same time, the expansion of IT/OT convergence was also identified as a new security vulnerability. The trend shows both the benefits of improved efficiency and data utilization and the growing security burden.
As industrial companies expand the connectivity of IT environments for production equipment and operating systems, broaden the scope of enterprise-wide operational data use, and accelerate AI adoption, connection points between previously separate systems are increasing.
The report identified IT/OT integration points as the second most vulnerable area for cyber incidents, and viewed strengthening IT/OT architecture security as a new business opportunity. It also found that 37% of responding companies expect positive business outcomes within the next 5 years from strengthening IT/OT architecture security.
Accordingly, Rockwell Automation emphasized the need to strengthen cybersecurity in a connected industrial environment and said systematic management of IT/OT convergence is necessary. It also stressed the need to build a resilient operating system premised on the occurrence of cyber incidents.
The survey was conducted among 1,560 decision-makers in manufacturing and industrial operations across 17 countries.
Source: TECHWORLD · Park Gyu-chan
Original: https://www.epnc.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=407328
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Source: TECHWORLD
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