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While operational technology (OT) has traditionally been separate from information technology (IT), that line is becoming increasingly blurred.

As digital transformation initiatives become widespread and IT-OT convergence rapidly expands, protecting OT systems today represents a critical element of an organisation’s security posture.

And with more and more organisations now looking for dedicated solutions to keep these systems secure, OT security vendors are gaining traction in the cybersecurity space, providing new ways to keep critical physical infrastructure secure. 

What is OT security?

OT security refers to the practices and tools used to protect operational technology (OT) –

the technology that controls physical processes in critical infrastructure sectors like power generation, water treatment, and manufacturing.

OT security solutions are designed to protect OT systems like Industrial control systems (ICS)Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, and other OT backbone of global infrastructure and are critical to the operation of power grids, water treatment plants, and manufacturing facilities around the world. 

These systems systems are becoming increasingly connected to the internet too, which makes them more vulnerable to cyber attacks. Malicious actors are constantly developing new techniques to exploit these vulnerabilities and disrupt crucial operations.

But OT security is not just about preventing cyberattacks. While most discussions around OT security tend to focus on preventing external threats, it requires a comprehensive approach that addresses various aspects of security, including risk management, operational resilience, and human factors.

No matter how good an organisation's OT security posture is, security incidents are inevitable. It’s crucial to establish a robust incident so you can minimize the impact of such incidents and restore normal operations as quickly as possible.

Why is OT security important?

OT systems control critical infrastructure like power grids, water treatment plants, and manufacturing facilities. A cyber attack on these systems could disrupt operations, leading to cascading effects like blackouts, contaminated water supplies, or even industrial accidents.

Even if there's no physical harm, OT security breaches can cause major disruptions to operations and production stoppages. This could be devastating for some businesses, leading to lost revenue and a damaged reputation for the organization involved. 

what is OT security

Many industries also have strict regulations in place that mandate specific OT security measures, such as NERC CIP or IEC 62443. 

These regulations and standards define specific security requirements that organizations must meet to protect their OT systems from braces, and failure to comply can result in serious fines and other penalties.

Choosing an OT Security Vendor

Choosing the best OT security vendor for your business requires careful consideration of your specific needs and the vendor's capabilities. Here are some things you need to consider:

1. Self-Assessment

Before anything, it’s important to Identify the OT systems and devices you use, and how they connect to each other and the internet. This will help you prioritize the security measures you need.

You also need to consider the potential consequences of a cyberattack on your operations, as this will influence your choice of security solutions and vendor expertise 

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework provides a good foundation for OT security. Identify which pillars (Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover) are most critical for your organization.

2. Vendor Selection Criteria

When choosing an OT security vendor, make sure the vendor has a deep understanding of OT systems, protocols, and the specific security challenges of industrial environments. Look for vendors with experience in your industry, and check if the vendor's solutions address your prioritized security needs. 

It’s best to look for comprehensive solutions that cover asset discovery, vulnerability management, anomaly detection, and incident response. Consider the ease of deploying and integrating the vendor's solutions with your existing OT infrastructure too. Downtime for critical systems should be minimal.

3. Vendor Evaluation

Once you’ve chosen a vendor, develop a Request for Proposal (RFP) that outlines your specific requirements and evaluation criteria. This will help you compare different vendors effectively.If possible, it’s always good to request a proof-of-concept to see how the vendor's solution works in your environment to help identify any potential integration issues. 

Best OT Security Vendors

There are a variety of of OT tools and solutions on the market today, each of which can help your business secure critical OT systems can prevent disruptive cyber attacks before they happen. 

Here are ten of the best OT security Vendors available in 2024 based on their features, user reviews, and reputation in the space.

Check Point

Check Point is a well-known cybersecurity firm offering comprehensive ISC Security solutions to protect critical infrastructure and OT environments from cyber threats. Check Point boasts a range of features and capabilities to safeguard industrial control systems, ensuring the reliability, safety, and availability of industrial processes. These include a comprehensive set of security policies and controls specifically tailored for industrial environments, and granular access controls to allow organisations to define and enforce role-based access policies to protect critical systems from unauthorized access. The firm also provides network segmentation capabilities, enabling organisations to isolate critical assets and minimize the potential impact of a security breach.

 

One of Check Point's standout features is its ability to provide advanced threat prevention and detection capabilities tailored specifically for industrial environments. Its multi-layered security approach combines network segmentation, access control, and threat intelligence to defend against both known and unknown threats. It can also provide real-time visibility and monitoring of industrial networks, offering centralised management and monitoring capabilities to enable organisations to gain insights into network traffic, system logs, and device behaviour. Check Point's ICS Security integrates with other security tools and infrastructure, enabling seamless information sharing and coordination across the entire security ecosystem. It can be integrated with security information and event management (SIEM) systemsintrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS), and security orchestration platforms, enhancing the organization's overall security posture and incident response capabilities.

Honeywell 

Honeywell is an industry leader when it comes to industrial automation and OT security solutions. Honeywell’s stand-out Forge Cybersecurity solution combines advanced technologies, robust security features, and industry expertise to provide organisations with a comprehensive and proactive defence against cyber attacks. One of the key features of Honeywell Forge Cybersecurity is its continuous monitoring and threat detection capabilities. The solution utilises advanced analytics and machine learning algorithms to detect anomalous behaviour, network intrusions, and potential cyber threats in real time. This proactive approach allows organizations to quickly identify and respond to security incidents, minimizing the impact on critical operations.

 

Honeywell Forge Cybersecurity also offers asset management and vulnerability assessment features. It provides organizations with detailed visibility into their industrial network assets, including devices, configurations, and software versions. It also includes secure remote access capabilities, allowing authorized personnel to remotely connect and manage industrial systems without compromising security. This feature enables efficient monitoring, maintenance, and troubleshooting while maintaining strong security measures.

Darktrace

Next on our list is the cybersecurity giant Darktrace, whose AI-powered Industrial Immune System platform provides autonomous threat detection and response capabilities for critical infrastructure At its core, the platform is its ability to continuously monitor and learn the normal behaviour of industrial networks and devices by creating a baseline of expected activity to detect deviations and anomalies that may indicate a potential cyber threat. This self-learning capability enables the system to adapt and evolve alongside changing industrial environments, ensuring accurate and up-to-date threat detection. The Industrial Immune System employs AI algorithms to analyse network traffic, user behaviour, and device interactions in real-time, allowing it to detect a wide range of threats from malware infections and insider attacks to unauthorised access attempts and operational abnormalities. 

 

One of the key strengths of Darktrace's Industrial Immune System is its ability to provide real-time threat visualization and situational awareness. It offers a user-friendly interface that presents a clear and comprehensive view of the industrial network's security posture. Security operators can easily identify and investigate potential threats, understand their impact, and take appropriate action to mitigate risks. Darktrace's Industrial Immune System also supports automated response capabilities. When a potential threat is detected, the system can trigger predefined actions or alerts to mitigate the risk. It can isolate compromised devices, block suspicious network traffic, or send notifications to security personnel for further investigation. This automated response capability enables organizations to respond swiftly to cyber threats, reducing the potential impact of an attack.

Cisco

Cisco boasts a vast portfolio of Industrial Security solutions specially designed to protect critical infrastructure and OT environments from cyber threats. These solutions encompass network security appliances, including industrial firewalls, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), and VPN gateways, providing robust protection for industrial networks. At the core of Cisco's Industrial Security is the Industrial Network Director (IND). IND is a central management platform that allows organisations to gain visibility and control over their industrial networks. It provides real-time monitoring, device inventory management, and centralised configuration capabilities, enabling efficient network management and security administration. 

 

Cisco's OT Security solutions also integrate advanced threat detection and prevention capabilities. These include their Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) and Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) technologies, which provide proactive threat detection, real-time blocking of malicious activities, and continuous monitoring for industrial networks. These tools are designed to seamlessly integrate with their broader networking and infrastructure portfolio. This integration allows for holistic security management, centralized visibility, and simplified administration of both IT and OT networks, promoting operational efficiency and reducing complexity. Cisco also provides a range of professional services to support organisations in implementing and managing their OT security solutions. These services include risk assessments, security architecture design, incident response planning, and security awareness training, among others.

Fortinet

Fortinet is a leading OT security vendor that provides both hardware and a custom operating system (FortiOS) to secure networks through what is known as a “borderless network.” This network protects critical OT infrastructure, ensuring the reliability, safety, and availability of industrial processes. It also enables deep visibility and control over OT networks, offering network segmentation capabilities to allow organisations to isolate critical assets and separate them from non-critical components. This helps to minimise the potential impact of a security breach and contain any malicious activities within the network. 

 

Fortinet also includes advanced threat detection and prevention mechanisms using real-time monitoring and analysis of network traffic, device behaviour, and system logs to detect anomalies and potential cyber threats. By leveraging machine learning and behavioural analytics, the solution can identify suspicious activities, unauthorized access attempts, and malware infections that may put critical infrastructure at risk. As well as threat detection, Fortinet's OT security solution provides robust access control and authentication mechanisms. It offers role-based access controls, ensuring that only authorized personnel can access critical systems and configurations. It also supports multifactor authentication, adding an extra layer of security to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive OT environments. Fortinet's OT security solution also integrates with the broader security ecosystem, enabling seamless information sharing and coordination.

SimSpace

SimSpace is a leading provider of OT cybersecurity simulation and training solutions that enable organisations to assess and improve their cybersecurity posture in a safe and controlled environment. With SimSpace, companies can integrate their OT environment into the cyber range and train their people, test their technology, and assess their processes under pressure It creates virtual replicas of their OT networks and simulates realistic network traffic and behaviours so that organisations can conduct thorough security testing, vulnerability assessments, and testing without impacting the production environment. It also offers an extensive library of pre-built OT attack scenarios and threat intelligence, enabling organisations to simulate a wide range of cyber attacks targeting their OT systems. 

 

Unlike many other OT security vendors, Simspace provides additional training and education programs to help organisations build and improve their cybersecurity skills specific to OT environments. They provide hands-on training sessions, workshops, and exercises that enable security teams to understand the unique challenges of protecting OT systems and develop the necessary expertise to defend against evolving threats. This enables organisations to assess the effectiveness of their security controls, validate the resilience of their OT systems, and properly train their personnel in responding to potential cyber threats.

Trend Micro

Trend Micro is a cybersecurity powerhouse with an incredibly powerful unified platform for OT with IT and CT (5G) networks and extended detection and response (XDR) security solutions and professional services. Trend Micro’s Deep Security for Industrial Control Systems is specifically designed to protect ICS and OT networks from cyber threat solution that combines multiple security layers, including intrusion prevention, application whitelisting, integrity monitoring, and virtual patching. This also includes network segmentation and access control features, helping organisations enforce security policies, isolate critical systems, and control access to sensitive OT components. 

 

One important aspect of Trend Micro's OT security solutions is their advanced threat detection and response capabilities. Their solutions leverage machine learning, behaviour analysis, and threat intelligence to detect and mitigate both known and unknown threats in real time. This proactive approach enables organizations to identify and respond to potential cyber incidents quickly, minimizing the impact on OT operations. Trend Micro also provides security solutions for connected devices and industrial IoT (IIoT) environments. Their solutions help organisations secure IIoT devices, manage device vulnerabilities, and ensure the integrity and confidentiality of IIoT communications. By protecting the entire ecosystem, from OT networks to IIoT devices, Trend Micro helps organisations maintain a robust and resilient security posture.

SCADAFence

SCADAFence is one of the most popular OT Security Vendors on the market, providing comprehensive solutions to protect industrial control systems from cyber threats. SCADAfence’s OT security platform deploys a combination of passive and active network monitoring solutions that continuously monitor a company’s OT network via deep packet inspection and alert them of any possible security breaches and anomalous events. It does this using AI, machine learning, and behavioural analytics to provide real-time visibility, threat detection, and response capabilities to protect critical infrastructure and ensure the reliability and safety of industrial processes. By leveraging these advanced technologies, the platform can detect and alert on anomalies, suspicious activities, and potential cyber threats that may pose a risk to the integrity and availability of critical infrastructure. 

 

One of the key strengths of the SCADAfence Platform is its ability to provide deep visibility into ICS networks. It automatically discovers and maps the network topology, identifies connected devices and their configurations, and monitors communication patterns between them. This visibility enables organisations to gain a comprehensive understanding of their industrial networks, identify vulnerabilities, and implement appropriate security controls. The platform also facilitates incident response and threat-hunting activities, providing detailed alerts and comprehensive reports on security incidents that allow security teams to investigate and mitigate threats promptly. SCADAfence integrates with existing security infrastructure, enabling seamless information sharing and coordination with other security tools.

Dragos 

Dragos is one of the biggest names in industrial cybersecurity and a leading provider of OT security solutions. Founded by renowned OT practitioners, Dragos offers the industry’s most advanced OT software that helps companies visualise, protect and respond to cyber threats. Dragos is the only ICS/OT cybersecurity company to provide corrected, enriched, prioritized guidance that allows customers to manage the full lifecycle of specific vulnerabilities in their environment, showing historical disposition – through continuous, automated collection and analysis. Its platform is among the most trusted ISC cybersecurity technology, providing comprehensive visibility of ICS and OT assets and the best-practice guidance to respond before a significant compromise. It analyses multiple data sources including protocols, network traffic, data historians, host logs, asset characterizations, and anomalies to provide unmatched visibility of OT environments.

 

Dragos leverages advanced technologies, such as behavioural analytics and machine learning, to detect and mitigate sophisticated cyber threats targeting ICS. Their threat detection capabilities enable real-time monitoring, anomaly detection, and threat hunting, allowing organizations to proactively identify and respond to potential security incidents. It offers a comprehensive portfolio of OT security solutions that cover the entire cybersecurity lifecycle. Their solutions encompass threat intelligence, behavioural analytics, real-time monitoring, incident response, and vulnerability assessment. This end-to-end approach ensures organisations have the necessary tools and capabilities to detect, respond to, and recover from cyber threats in OT environments.

OTORIO 

OTORIO is an industry-leading OT security company that stands out for its Industrial-native OT security platform, which analyses and orchestrates data from cross-domain sources to establish a unified, enterprise-wide security strategy. By leveraging real-time data and machine learning algorithms, OTORIO's platform helps companies establish a unified, comprehensive enterprise-wide security strategy to triage and address digital security threats faster, and with greater reliability. Their holistic strategy for industrial security empowers organisations to stay one step ahead of potential attacks and ensures the uninterrupted operation of critical OT infrastructure.

 

OTORIO's reputation as a leader in industrial cybersecurity is solidified by its partnerships with major industry players and its involvement in shaping industry standards and best practices. They actively collaborate with organisations, regulatory bodies, and academic institutions to foster a secure and resilient industrial ecosystem, allowing them to stay at the forefront of industry trends, share knowledge, and contribute to the development of cybersecurity standards and best practices. OTORIO also offer a variety of OT solutions that cater to various OT security needs. Their RAM² solution, for instance, provides unparalleled consolidated visibility of your entire operational network, while their Spot solution provides organizations with fast, on-demand technical risk assessments of operational networks, and is easy to set up and execute onsite or remotely. This makes OTORIO one of the best vendors for OT Security in 2024.