Better OT Security Starts With The Fortinet Security Fabric

Operational technology (OT) is getting smarter as OT networks converge with informational technology networks, but while this makes OT more connected it also makes it accessible to bad actors. The Fortinet Security Fabric is made up of solutions designed to protect both IT and OT networks.

If your clients’ cybersecurity solutions don’t extend to their OT or industrial environment, they could face catastrophic impacts to their operations. The Fortinet Security Fabric can protect your clients' OT environments as effectively as their IT.

As companies digitally transform, operational technology and information technology networks are converging—increasing OT connectivity and exposure to cyber threats that can halt production and potentially harm human life. In 2021, a bad actor nearly poisoned 15,000 Florida residents when they managed to remotely access a water treatment plant’s monitoring software and instruct the OT to raise the level of lye added to the water to more than 100 times the normal amount before being stopped.

If your clients’ cybersecurity solutions don’t extend to their OT or industrial environment, they could face catastrophic impacts to their operations. “The systems that control production, they’re usually built with one single purpose in mind. Therefore, they’re not changed that often,” says Carlos Sanchez, senior director of operational technology at Fortinet. “So, what we do see in the wild in the community is a lot of legacy systems. They don’t have the level of connectivity that you see now.”

Fortinet has taken its more than two decades of research and development for protecting both IT and OT and built it into the Fortinet Security Fabric. By leveraging broad, integrated solutions that include network segmentation, zero trust access and multifactor authentication, your clients’ networks for both IT assets and OT assets have secure connections—even in the harshest, most remote environments like oil rigs. “The Security Fabric seamlessly enables security between IT and OT,” says Sanchez. “Network mapping, detection of suspicious activities and implementing zero trust, all these controls are part of the Security Fabric. Now they exist also in operational technology. So, it makes it a really robust solution when it comes to OT.”

If Fortinet already protects your customers, you can easily extend the existing Fortinet Security Fabric capabilities to cover their OT environment and manage everything from a single pane of glass—expanding your business opportunities with minimal lift. “The great thing about making that jump from IT to OT is that the operating system, the Security Fabric, it looks and feels the same.”

Approaching your customers about securing their OT is easy thanks to Fortinet’s OT Cyber Threat Assessment Program. With this survey, customers will see exactly where their weak points are and get complete transparency about the health of their operations.