Infosys TechCompass

Internet of things, operational technology, and 5G

Trend 14: IoT and OT tools enable complete network visibility

Enterprises were finding it difficult to track and manage their critical infrastructure due to the distributed nature of assets. However, increasing attacks necessitated the demand for monitoring operational and security events and implementing a proper incident management program. Organizations mainly required visibility on IoT and OT assets, traffic, and associated risks.

Innovative technologies enable organizations to understand security threats and anomalies in the network and provide complete network visibility through passive IoT and OT traffic monitoring. Tools from companies such as Claroty, Indegy, Cisco, Forescout, and Microsoft Defender for IoT (erstwhile CyberX) assist organizations in their digitization journey by understanding the risks associated with IoT and OT integration. In addition, they help achieve effective security reviews, cyber-physical use caseimplementation, and integration with next-generation firewalls, VM tools, network access control, SIEM, SOAR, and CMDB.

With the growing maturity of these tools, organizations have become more comfortable with blended active and passive scanning tools for better asset visibility. Along with the AI-enhanced cyberphysical system and organization controls, these solutions help businesses with automated risk scores and compliance against the OT industry's standards and regulations.

An Australian mining company partnered with Infosys to manage its OT security platform to ensure continuous security monitoring and operational availability at 50 OT plants spread across Australia, Americas, and other regions. The implementation of configuration changes helped the company streamline events and incident management.

Internet of things, operational technology, and 5G

Trend 15: Real-time security monitors help detect vulnerabilities and violations in 5G

The evolution of 5G opens opportunities for emerging technologies such as IoT-based smart meters, connected cars, augmented and virtual reality, and telemedicine with lower latency, higher capacity, low energy, high throughput, and increased bandwidth capabilities. But 5G infrastructure virtualization, network resource sharing, dynamic network topologies, and slicing introduce novel security challenges such as isolation flaws in 5G infrastructure virtualization. Adding or removing software and hardware elements in dynamic network topologies will introduce unknown attack vectors, causing network security violations. Organizations are looking for innovative and secure technology solutions to manage these security challenges and obtain real-time visibility, among other benefits.

In 5G, security monitors help detect vulnerabilities, security policy violations, and abnormal behavior, and they provide security metric stats. Tools such as Trend Micro, Nokia's NetGuard Adaptive Security Operations, Palo Alto's K2-Series next-generation firewall, and Mobileum's signaling firewall ensure the security and protection of 5G networks, services, and subscribers. To secure 5G networks, solutions must protect the fronthaul, backhaul, and data center from complex network attacks such as DDoS and brute force.

A U.S.-based telecommunications company wanted to secure communication in a 5G ecosystem. Infosys helped the company manage security services to continuously detect, monitor, and manage the associated risks in 5G telecom devices, data, and integrations.