Claroty introduces an impact-centric approach to CPS risk reduction

Claroty has announced new capabilities in its SaaS-based Claroty xDome platform that it says provides manufacturing organisations with an impact-centric view of their CPS (cyber-physical systems) environment. The new additions, Device Purpose and Risk Benchmarking, allow users to see how the overall risk of an environment is affected by the processes involved in a device’s use and prioritise risk reduction efforts based on potential impact to business outcomes, while bridging the gap between CPS personnel and other business units.

According to Gartner, “Organisations are becoming aware of their blind spots. Asset-intensive organisations increasingly realise that CPS environments are value creation centres. A manufacturing company makes money by producing goods, for instance. Once largely ‘out of sight, out of mind’, boards and C-suite executives increasingly want to know how their CPS production and mission-critical environments are protected.”

To date, the CPS protection industry has taken an asset-centric approach by providing in-depth visibility into specific assets and their associated risks. While establishing a comprehensive asset inventory is a necessary first step for any cybersecurity program, taking a solely asset-centric approach to reducing CPS risk may lead security teams to focus on assets that would have little to no impact on the business if compromised. Organisations must be able to prioritise their limited remediation resources based on the business purpose each asset serves, whether it delivers essential services to the general population or powers the organisation’s largest revenue stream. In instances such as a security analyst and OT engineer looking at two identical devices with the same exposures, knowing what each device does for the business is critical for determining which to address first.

Claroty says xDome’s Device Purpose and Risk Benchmarking capabilities make this paradigm shift from asset-centric to impact-centric risk reduction possible, by equipping teams responsible for maintaining mission-critical processes and devices with the business context they need to effectively prevent process disruption, downtime and financial loss. Focusing on business context and outcomes provides a shared language for security teams and CPS operators while connecting their work with larger business impact analysis efforts for the organisation.

“The security of critical infrastructures is under growing scrutiny as adversaries increasingly target these systems of the greatest criticality,” said Yoram Gronich, Chief Product Officer at Claroty. “The teams managing these environments are facing mounting pressure from multiple fronts in their organisations and need tools that exponentially make their jobs easier so they can focus on protecting the mission-critical infrastructures that sustain societal operations; that means having the business context to meaningfully reduce risk.”

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