Challenge #1: Inadequate Inventory Management System

One of the main challenges in managing SCADA/ICS system vulnerabilities is a lack of comprehensive asset inventory data. In many cases, asset information is limited to outdated spreadsheets or incomplete data from a variety of sources, resulting in incomplete or unreliable coverage.

Organizations need a powerful asset inventory management solution to provide detailed profile data for each asset, including criticality, location, and accessibility. However, gathering this information can be a significant challenge due to limited or incomplete inventory data. While passive tools can compile basic data, they often lack the detail required for effective vulnerability management. Investing in asset inventory management solutions and developing processes for maintaining detailed data is crucial for protecting SCADA/ICS systems from potential vulnerabilities and ensuring reliable infrastructure security.

Challenge #2: Recognizing and Classifying Vulnerabilities

There are many vulnerability scanners available, but they pose stringent challenges in SCADA/ICS environments. These systems require a gentler approach to vulnerability scanning, as it can disrupt operations and quickly become outdated.

A combination of agent-based and agentless SCADA/ICS systems management provides a more effective alternative. This approach generates a complete inventory of assets, including firmware versions, patch status, and configuration settings. The inventory can be cross-referenced with vulnerability databases for a complete view of the OT/SCADA/ICS environment's cyber risks. This approach offers deep risk information, 100% real-time coverage of all assets, and near real-time inventory updates for a complete and relevant view of vulnerabilities.

Challenge #3: Prioritizing Vulnerabilities

Knowing your vulnerabilities is an essential first step, but determining which ones to remediate first, is a critical step that goes beyond simply knowing their existence.

ESG Research found that 34% of cybersecurity professionals struggle with prioritizing which vulnerabilities to remediate, as there can be hundreds or thousands to address. This can be overwhelming and hinder progress. A 360-degree asset inventory helps prioritize the most critical or at-risk assets, considering factors such as the asset's criticality to the process, network and application firewall protections, and insecure accounts. By scoring assets based on their risk context, the organization can prioritize remediation efforts and possible compensating controls.

Challenge #4: Timely Remediation

In IT, remediating vulnerabilities is straightforward with automated tools and dedicated teams, but in SCADA/ICS it's more complex. Patching, hardening settings, and deploying compensating controls can be tedious and time-consuming, especially with a shortage of skills and resources. This includes tracking patches, device compatibility, and operational requirements. The challenges include resource availability, OEM push-back, and multiple upgrades for system integration. To address this, a "Think Global: Act Local" approach is recommended, centralizing oversight and analysis of risks and vulnerabilities while enabling local operators to take remediation actions with automation. This includes agent-based technology for efficient and safe remediation, not just detection.

Challenge #5: Tracking and Maintaining

Numerous leaders in the ICS security field encounter difficulties in effectively managing the vulnerability management process from start to finish. One reason for this is the labor-intensive nature of conducting vulnerability assessments, which leads some organizations to carry out these assessments infrequently.

Once an assessment is completed, it often requires separate tools or internal resources to remediate identified vulnerabilities. With many tasks at hand, it's easy to lose track of the overall process. To address these challenges, implementing a closed-loop vulnerability management process that incorporates integrated remediation is crucial. This can be further enhanced by integrating administrative functions, such as marking patches as reviewed and approved, within the same toolset, which can significantly improve management. Additionally, real-time updates of asset inventories, vulnerabilities, and remediation information make it possible to instantaneously refresh relevant data when querying an asset base.

Conclusion:

1. Vulnerability management in SCADA/ICS is a challenging task, but there are tools and processes that can improve efficiency and effectiveness.
2. Industrial organizations need to adopt technology to achieve a 360-degree view of risk, centralization of prioritization, and OT-safe remediation.
3. People and process are equally important to consider in vulnerability management in SCADA/ICS, and it's necessary to leverage knowledge and expertise from IT.
4. The IT OT convergence is crucial, and a combination of skills and knowledge from both sides is required to provide security tools and functions in an operational environment.
5. The "Think Global: Act Local" approach can work well in practice to leverage scale and knowledge at both ends of the process, and an agent-agentless platform can enable this.
6. Vulnerability management alone is short-sighted and difficult to execute in SCADA/ICS. Adopting a new way of thinking and scaling technology to enable 360-degree risk management can provide fleet-wide visibility into risk and improve SCADA/ICS risk reduction.