Step1: Know what you own: The Importance of Keeping an Industrial Cyber Security Asset Inventory

Step 1: Know What You Own

This article, the first installment in our series titled 'Protecting Your Industrial Domain,' delves into the fundamental cornerstone of any effective Industrial Cyber Security management plan: understanding your assets.

What Is a Cyber Asset Inventory?

An Industrial asset inventory is a detailed record of all the assets and resources within an organisation's Industrial domain. These assets can include industrial hardware such as servers, workstations, PLCs, HMIs and logic solvers, networking equipment, for example firewalls, switches, data diodes, routers and any software application, operating systems and configuration information associated with these assets. Maintaining an up-to-date inventory helps organisations understand their digital footprint and serves as a cornerstone for cybersecurity efforts. This understanding is critical for informing subsequent lifecycle steps, such as risk assessment and safer architecture design.

There are many reasons why holding and maintaining an Industrial asset inventory is crucial:

1. Improved Security Posture:

One of the primary benefits of maintaining an asset inventory is that it provides a clear view of your organisation's digital landscape. Knowing what assets you have and where they are located allows you to identify potential vulnerabilities and security gaps. This insight enables you to prioritise security measures and allocate resources effectively to protect critical assets.

2. Efficient Incident Response:

In the event of a cyberattack or security breach, time is of the essence. Without a comprehensive asset inventory, it can be challenging to determine the extent of the breach and which assets have been compromised. With an up-to-date inventory, you can quickly identify affected assets and respond to the incident more efficiently, minimizing potential damage.

3. Compliance and Regulatory Requirements:

Many industries have specific compliance and regulatory requirements related to cybersecurity. Keeping an asset inventory is often a mandatory part of these regulations. Failing to comply with these requirements can result in severe penalties and damage to your organisation's reputation.

4. Obsolescence Management and Budget Allocation:

Understanding your asset inventory helps you make informed decisions when allocating your cybersecurity budget. You can prioritise investments in security measures for the most critical assets while reducing unnecessary spending on less important ones.

5. Asset Lifecycle Management:

Assets have a lifecycle and keeping track of this lifecycle is essential for both security and cost-effectiveness. An asset inventory helps you track when assets were acquired, when they need maintenance or updates, and when they should be retired or replaced. This ensures that you are not exposing your organisation to unnecessary risks by using outdated or unsupported technology.

6. Shadow IT and Unauthorized Access:

Shadow IT refers to the use of unauthorized software or hardware within an organisation. Without an asset inventory, it can be challenging to identify and manage shadow IT, which can introduce security vulnerabilities and create compliance issues. An inventory helps you gain better control over what is being used within your network.

7. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity:

In times of disaster or unexpected downtime, knowing your asset inventory is crucial for effective disaster recovery and business continuity planning. You can prioritise the recovery of critical assets and ensure that essential systems are back up and running as quickly as possible.

Maintaining a comprehensive Industrial asset inventory is not just a good practice; it's a fundamental requirement for modern cybersecurity. It provides essential insights into your digital infrastructure, enhances security, aids in incident response, ensures compliance, and helps you make informed decisions about resource allocation. As cyber threats continue to evolve, organisations that prioritize and regularly update their asset inventory will be better equipped to safeguard their digital assets and maintain business resilience in the face of adversity.

However, businesses often fail to get this initial step correct. Maintaining an up-to-date asset inventory can be a challenge for organisations due to any of these factors:

1. Retroactive Record Keeping

As with many cyber related tasks in the Industrial domain we are often applying new processes to legacy systems. It can be onerous for organisations to apply time and effort to retroactively complete asset inventories for systems that have been installed for years, or perhaps decades.

2. Lack of Resources

As above, it is sometimes difficult for organisations to allocate resources to populate and maintain these inventories on a regular basis. Asset inventories often require specialist site knowledge to complete; this normally falls on the site systems engineers who already have busy work schedules. This lack of resources can result in record keeping being de-prioritised over production or operational duties.

3. Poor Change Management

Asset inventory updates are regularly omitted from modification procedures resulting in them not being updated should a modification or upgrade take place. This can be exacerbated when modifications are being planned and carried out by vendors or project teams who are not fully aware of internal procedures and documentation processes.

ControlShield can offer several services to assist your organisation in developing and maintaining a robust and manageable Industrial asset inventory, get in touch today: http://www.controlshield.co.uk