The rise of technology in the industrial sector has revolutionised the way companies work. At the same time, there is a need to protect the wealth of data and information generated through increasingly demanding cybersecurity standards. We analyse 5 keys to generating secure environments in the industrial sector.
1. Blockchain
This term, popularly linked to cryptography, is also used and applied to companies operating in traditional sectors. Many of them are betting on a migration to web 3.0, offering them greater performance in their business and high doses of data security.
But what is the Blockchain? It is a blockchain that works by a consensus algorithm, i.e. all the users of the network verify and approve that the information contained in the blocks is true, making the information very difficult to hack and corrupt.
Companies such as Amazon, Microsoft or the consulting firm Deloitte have already made this migration to achieve a higher level of security, decentralisation and efficiency.
2. Zero Trust Security
This vision of cybersecurity advocates the use of security perimeters, where trusted actors are already within the network itself and those who try to enter it are excluded as unauthorised users. In short, Zero Trust Security is about creating an internal network for each organisation where only certain devices can access it.
In order to use this system, organisations must:
- Verify the user
- Verify the device
- Limit access
- Adapt to changes
Such an approach reduces the risk of losing valuable information and protects the elements connected to the network, whether or not they are physically located at the centre of an organisation, i.e. the Internet of Things (IoT) network. This network of objects incorporates sensors, software and other technologies in order to provide greater interaction and usability, which is what we call Industry 4.0.
3. Proxy server
Proxy servers are a tool that makes our web searches more secure. Their function is to be an intermediary between our identification on the Internet, i.e. our IP address, and the destination web pages.
For example, in the case of entering an unfriendly web page, we would be protecting our identity from third parties, preventing us from being tracked and violated by others. In short, the proxy server will be in charge of displaying your server’s data instead of ours.
4. Vulnerability scanner
This is probably the system most commonly used by companies of any size, those popularly known as anti virus scanners. In user-level cybersecurity, they are used to detect possible threats and even, the most advanced ones, to protect us from them and eliminate them.
At industrial and business level they act in a different way, they are responsible for detecting, analysing and managing the weak points of the system, blocking any incoming and outgoing IPs within the local network. They also try to warn of attacks in real time, in order to avoid data loss, production stoppages or larger attacks such as capital theft.
5. Security protocols
In addition to all the techniques mentioned above, we can follow a series of habits that, without being cybersecurity tools, will allow us to keep our data and information safer from cyber attacks.
There are an infinite number of them, but in this post we highlight the following:
- Strong passwords, combining numbers with letters.
- Double verification access with email and/or telephone
- Back-up copies
- Do not access pages of dubious security
- Check the authenticity of links and profiles.