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Cybersecurity in ASEAN: An Urgent Call to Action
the financial sector to collaborate among key partners, but this is not replicated in other critical
information infrastructure sectors.
“The tendency for corporates is to keep quiet. No one
wants to be the next Target or Yahoo! Revealing too much
could be damaging to a company’s brand. It is very
difficult, particularly in ASEAN, to expect companies to
openly share without changes at the policy level.”
—regional automation and industrial security provider
2.1.4Technological evolution is increasing complexity
The evolution of technology is adding complexity to the effective monitoring of and response to
cyber incidents for an array of reasons:
•
The convergence of IT and OT
•
The proliferation of consumer IoT devices
•
The accelerated adoption of multi-cloud computing
•
The growing share of encrypted traffic
•
The increasing uptake of virtual currency
The convergence of IT andOT
The global market for the industrial IoT is projected to grow at a CAGR of 21 percent from 2016
to 2021, reaching $123.8 billion by 2021. This will give rise to security concerns as the newly
connected operational endpoints become new access points to insert malware into the wider
network or the endpoints themselves become targets to incapacitate, destabilize, or even
weaponize the network.
With industrial control system cybersecurity breaches on the rise, inadequate protection has
become a critical issue. Historically, OT and IT have been two distinct functions. While IT is
responsible for the systems that collect, transport, and process data for the business, OT
generally comprises the systems that handle the monitoring and automation of industrial control
systems through supervisory control and data acquisition systems attached to distributed control
systems, programmable logic controllers, remote terminal units, and field devices. OT is focused
on the automation of machines, processes, and systems within a plant, while IT focuses on the
enterprise information systems required to support business operations. Business objectives are
not the only difference between OT and IT functions. Employees in these respective functions
also have distinct roles, reporting structures, and departmental cultures, while the technology
platforms are frequently logically or physically separated. Most notably, risk evaluation and
tolerances differ significantly.
Vast differences exist between OT and IT, but replacing legacy OT systems with IP-enabled
devices has lessened the isolation these systems once relied on and has expanded the attack
surface. Deployed IoT devices have very limited computational sophistication in terms of cyber
risk mitigation capabilities beyond isolation techniques. This makes them vulnerable and