Understanding cybersecurity challenges in the age of Industry 4.0

It is a known fact that cybersecurity breaches in any industry negatively affect business outcomes, and this is still a concern in the age of Industry 4.0. Cyberattacks on critical industrial equipment hamper businesses. Digitization is driven by four kinds of disruption:

• The astronomical rise in data volumes: As everything moves toward digitization, we can imagine the wealth of data generated as a result, thus making it easy for an attacker to intercept data and steal intellectual property (IP) as the amount of data that needs to be protected against threats and malware increases.
• Forever-increasing computational power: The job of attackers gets easier every time we see an increase in computational power. Quantum computing has increased our computational power manifold. This has empowered attackers to break or crack open more boundaries and types of authentication faster.
• A super-connected world (connected vehicles, airbuses, heart defibrillators, etc.): The attack surface has increased to an extent that it can now affect human life as well. Thinning down network segmentation, collecting data from sensors, and sending it for further processing have contributed to an increased attack surface.
• A data (AI and ML) world (deep insights, business intelligence, and analytics): Analytics are key for any organization to thrive today. While data brings about more business intelligence and provides opportunities for businesses to take calculated steps toward success, if infiltrated, these insights and intelligence fall directly into the hands of an attacker.

As a lot of industries adapt to Industry 4.0, they have become an appealing target for attackers. Attackers jump across IT and OT laterally on the lookout for vulnerabilities to exploit them, paving the way for industrial espionage, IP leakage, or IP theft.

The improved connectivity between and the convergence of OT and IT have increased the attack surface. This also requires that the compliance requirements of every industry be retouched to meet the ever-growing security requirements.

We are here to address this challenge and aid organizations in line with Industry 4.0 to protect their infrastructure from attacks continuously. We can do this with MDIoT. We will see more about MDIoT in upcoming chapters.

Cybersecurity challenges are ever-increasing, and the few that affect the IoT/OT world that we have mentioned are just examples to get us started on this journey to understand the challenges and how to address them better with MDIoT.