Critical infrastructures, including national critical infrastructure, offer many essential services to communities and nations. In some cases, a nation’s economy depends on these infrastructures. They rely on industrial control systems (ICS) and operational technology (OT) to provide uninterrupted and reliable services.

These infrastructures often contain security gaps and flaws in technology implementations leading to succesful cyberattacks. Some of them rely on the concept of air-gap networks to thwart cyber intrusions. However, due to interconnections between internal and external networks and the expansion of services, air-gap implementations are fading away. As a result, ICS that are not designed with security in mind are exposed to external threats, compromising the resiliency of the infrastructure.

Strategic readiness should be underpinned by the notion that eventually, a cyberattack will happen, and when it occurs, you should be proactively ready to respond. Fortifying operational technology is essential to make these infrastructures cyber-resilient and available to serve.

During this keynote, Jason Dely will speak about implementing a comprehensive and proactive risk management strategy. He will discuss evaluating tools to properly assess the cyber risk posture and effectively prioritize the most pressing vulnerabilities to safeguard these infrastructures from cyberattacks and make them cyber-resilient.

Critical infrastructure organizations are on alert as bad actors see these infrastructures as attractive target for cyber-attacks. Ransomware variants, phishing emails, wiper malware and more show up as tactics used to disrupt services offered by these infrastructures. As digital transformation grows, so does the number of users, devices and applications connect across the operational technology, information technology, and cloud domains. This increases the number of remote users accessing critical systems like meters, sensors, and industrial control systems. While for many critical infrastructure owners and operators, this positively contributes to operational efficiency, it has also increased cyber risk and expanded the attack surface introducing known and unknown threats to the critical systems. During this session, we will look at the threats impacting critical infrastructure organizations and discuss the value of a threat-informed defense strategy for securing these organizations.

Industrial asset owners experience unique challenges and security considerations when securig their network perimeter, focusing on OT LAN and Edge Networks. With the increasing integration of IT/OT environments and the exposure of the network perimeter to external networks, this session explores threats and vulnerabilities affecting critical networks, along with mitigation strategies. Rod will introduce Fortinet’s Security Fabric Platform approach for integrated security management of the LAN and Edge Networks in OT, discussing the benefits of a unified approach for configuration, maintenance, and security operations. Additionally, he will explore LAN Edge and SASE extensions, highlighting how these enable the extension of unified security across the smallest and most remote sites.Industrial asset owners experience unique challenges and security considerations when securig their network perimeter, focusing on OT LAN and Edge Networks. With the increasing integration of IT/OT environments and the exposure of the network perimeter to external networks, this session explores threats and vulnerabilities affecting critical networks, along with mitigation strategies. Rod will introduce Fortinet’s Security Fabric Platform approach for integrated security management of the LAN and Edge Networks in OT, discussing the benefits of a unified approach for configuration, maintenance, and security operations. Additionally, he will explore LAN Edge and

As digital transformation drives change in operations, industrial organizations are leveraging production data to improve efficiency and inform decisions. With transformation comes an increase in OT systems connected to enterprise IT networks, expanding the attack surface and introducing increased risk to the business. During this session, we will explore three customer case studies and how they designed-in security so OT production networks stay safe, available, and secure.

Organizations that embarked on accelerated digital transformation are connecting their OT systems to the outside world. And since then,  there have been a surge of ransomware targeting OT infrastructure worldwide. Manufacturing, Energy and Facilities have all been targeted.  With the greater available of AI tools today, malicious hackers who do not have deep skillsets are now able to conduct those complex hacking previously only carried out by the more sophisticated hackers.  Organizations got to step up their cyber defense and adopt a holistic approach to be better prepared to support the vision and growth of their businesses with minimal disruption from adversaries.  In this session, the panel would discuss about the current challenges faced by most organizations, and the type of tools that enable them to stay ahead in this A.I. era.

Moderator:

In the face of continually evolving cyber threats, organizations are compelled to adopt a unified and integrated approach to network operations centers (NOC) and security operations centers (SOC). This session explores the need for synergy between NOC and SOC functions in response to the dynamic nature of modern cyber threats. By examining the challenges posed by siloed operations, the session sheds light on the benefits and strategic advantages of fostering collaboration and integration between NOC and SOC teams across IT and OT environments. An integrated NOC/SOC reduces alert fatigue and enables efficient security automation. Aasef will share insights into how Fortinet’s Security Fabric Platform approach enhances threat detection, incident response, compliance assurance, and overall organizational resilience while lowering the total cost of ownership for SecOps infrastructure.