(CS)²AI Fellow Fireside Chat with Jonathan Pollet

(CS)²AI Fellow Fireside Chat featuring Jonthan Pollet

Amidst the escalating ransomware and cyber threats, coupled with the mounting pressure to adhere to evolving regulatory and security standards, executive leaders within organizations reliant on Operational Technology (OT) systems are compelled to articulate their strategic approach to safeguarding their OT systems from increasingly complex threats.

While securing industrial OT systems used to be decentralized and the responsibility of each plant manager, over the past 5 to 10 years, we have seen a noticeable shift in the industry to move the responsibility and ownership of cyber security to the CIO and those in leadership of the business IT cyber security systems. However, due to the inherent differences in technology, personnel, and processes between the business IT environment and industrialized OT systems, a successful leader cannot simply impose their IT cyber security strategy and solutions upon the OT side of the organization without first understanding the unique operating constraints, current technology portfolio, processes in place, and cyber risks prevalent on the OT side.

Jonathan Pollet and his team at Red Tiger Security have developed a field-tested and proven three-step process that empowers senior leadership with clarity regarding the current gaps on the OT side of their organizations and connects the dots to an actionable remediation strategy. This process generates a Strategic Roadmap that not only addresses current security gaps but also delivers a comprehensive multi-year plan for deploying missing technology solutions, updating processes and procedures, and elevating the knowledge of your workforce to enhance the maturity of your OT cyber security program. Going through this process also delivers a budgetary cost estimate with traceability built into the process, which significantly enhances your effectiveness at obtaining the funding needed to make the necessary security investments.

As with many of Pollet’s talks, this one is loaded with plenty of useful meat on the bone from years of experience in the trenches. These practical techniques and tips are also peppered with interesting stories from implementing this methodology in various critical infrastructure industrial environments around the world.