MForesight, in collaboration with the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), hosted a visioning workshop on emergent theme of Cyber Security for Manufacturers.

Cyber-attacks pose a growing threat not only to national security but also to U.S. economic competitiveness. Manufacturing firms are vulnerable to threats including sabotage of operations, alteration of data and product designs, and theft of intellectual property. The sector presents special security challenges because of the unique nature of interconnected supply chains, industrial control systems (ICSs), and operational technology (OT), which consist of networked machines, sensors, data, and software.

The cyber security experts and leaders from the private sector, federal government, and academic community in attendance had the opportunity to contribute their knowledge and expertise to clarify manufacturing-specific cyber security challenges, identify emerging technology solutions, and define action items. The primary goal of the workshop was to provide actionable insights and recommendations that, if implemented, will benefit manufacturers of all sizes. All information shared was considered information for public consumption and was not attributed to specific individuals or organizations.

Day 1 broke down four key challenge areas into specific, addressable needs. Gaps were identified and solutions and action items were developed to address these gaps. The four key challenge areas are:

• System Level Security: The focus of this breakout was the system level interaction of the IT and OT realms. The integration of multiple layers and types of software and the security challenges that happen at the gaps between those layers was explored. System-level resilience was addressed, as well as, monitoring, patching, and assessing OT assets.
• Integrity of Manufactured Goods: This breakout focused on the integrity of manufactured goods, with an emphasis on protection and validation of design data across all platforms. Tampering and theft of designs and manufacturing parameters were covered, along with the respective protection and verification of the data.
• Machine to Machine Security: The focus of this breakout was the communication of manufacturing equipment with 1. Its own internal elements, 2. Other manufacturing equipment, and 3. Its direct controlling software. Key issues here were protecting, verifying, and detecting issues with the “lowest level” manufacturing equipment data. Legacy systems were a key focal point in this discussion.
• Supply Chain to Factory Security: The focus of this breakout is what is sometimes called “through the perimeter” security. This is security of a manufacturing organization when working with suppliers, customers, service providers, and other outside entities. The focus was on the future of manufacturing, where interconnectivity will be more prevalent, and data and access will shared on a deeper level.

Day 2 addressed cyber intelligence with the aim to investigate manufacturing-specific challenges in collecting, analyzing, and distributing threats, indicators, and adversaries. The appropriate security posture for manufacturers as well as the mechanics of performing the intelligence operations will be discussed. The role of academia, manufacturers, and different agencies in the government was also  covered. Breakout groups covered the following three topics:

• Intelligence Gathering: This breakout focused on collecting, centralizing, and prioritizing threats and indicators, sourced both from manufacturers and academia. This included the mechanics of how to best perform this, the privacy barriers, and the structure of public-private partnerships that can best accelerate manufacturing specific intelligence gathering.
• Intelligence and Adversary Assessment: This breakout focused on assessment of an adversary’s capabilities, intentions and activities, and using that assessment to inform manufacturers’ overall security posture. The discussion focused on the mechanics of the information transfer, but rather on the type of information and the role government defense and intelligence agencies can perform to assist manufacturers in defining their security priorities and overall posture.
• Intelligence Sharing: This breakout focused on sharing cyber threats, indicators, priorities and strategies. This was discussed for manufacturer-to-manufacturer, government-to-manufacturer, and academia-to-manufacturer channels of information.

MForesight Event Page