Create an ICS Cybersecurity Roadmap
Proven strategies for safeguarding your industrial networks
ICS Cybersecurity: Where Should You Start?
Building OT cybersecurity resilience doesn’t happen overnight, and organizations often struggle with uncertainty about the right next steps, clear ownership, and resources for addressing the cyber risks specific to ICS environments – and the risks are many.
Industrial environments face operational, environmental, and human safety risks against a backdrop of technology modernization, emerging regulatory oversight, and constantly evolving threat actors. With so much at stake, establishing a foundation of ICS security controls that you can build upon as your organization changes or matures is critical for creating the resilience that industrial cybersecurity requires.
At Dragos, our mission is safeguarding civilization. With the industry’s most trusted team of ICS and OT experts, we’ve codified our industry expertise to offer an OT cybersecurity platform rich with OT-specific threat intelligence to help you visualize, protect, and respond to the rapid growth of industrial cyber threats.
Establish the Baseline, Then Operationalize and Optimize Your Cybersecurity Controls
While each roadmap for practicing cybersecurity resilience is unique, they each share a common vocabulary – first, establish a baseline for where you are and where you want to go. Then it’s all about operationalizing and optimizing ICS security controls within your environment.
Establishing a baseline offers the opportunity to assess, plan, and organize your next steps. Creating an ICS incident response plan and having a retainer in place, having an up-to-date asset inventory and accurate documentation of your OT network architecture are essential for setting your baseline.
Monitoring your OT assets and network traffic for primary sites, identifying areas where you’re vulnerable, or responding to incidents are good areas to focus as you operationalize more security controls in your environment.
A key objective of optimizing your cybersecurity controls is situated around risk reduction. As you extend these controls to more sites, you can validate what you’ve implemented and make adjustments as your organization and risks evolve.
Start with the Five Critical Controls for OT Cybersecurity
Implementing the right cybersecurity controls in ICS environments should be based on the nature of their unique risks. Dragos approaches these risks based on the Five ICS Cybersecurity Critical Controls identified by the SANS Institute.
![Start with the Five Critical Controls for ICS/OT Cybersecurity](https://www.dragos.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/5-critical-controls-dragos-industrial-cybersecurity-cover-image-1.png)
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Create a Roadmap That Works for You
Every organization is different, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the next steps in your OT cybersecurity journey.
Having a strategy for implementing these critical controls that is reflective of your goals, resources, and level of program maturity is vital to creating a realistic roadmap of what’s next. The Dragos technology platform, threat intelligence, and professional services are designed to help you every step of the way.
Lessons Learned from the Front Lines
![Dragos 2023 ot cybersecurity year in review report](https://www.dragos.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/YIR23-Interactive-Page-1200x628-1.gif)
Ready to Advance Your Cybersecurity Compliance?
Wherever you are in your cybersecurity journey we’re here to help you take the next step in auditing and adhering to industry compliance requirements.