Millions of cyber threat detections have been reported to have hit Africa between January 2020 and February 2021.

According to the African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2021, done by Interpol, it’s reported that South Africa has the third highest number of cybercrime victims worldwide with over 100 million detections in total.

As a result, many companies and businesses are aware of the threat to information technology (IT), however, little is known about cyber security for industrial corporation’s operational technologies (OT).

In spite of the fact that most people have a good understanding of what IT is, not many people are familiar with OT. Operational Technology is a relatively new term that refers to machinery and electric equipment in factories, manufacturing systems, and utility companies.

OT can also be defined as technology that interacts or links with the physical world through Industrial Control Systems (ICS), which refers to information systems used to control industrial processes such as manufacturing, product handling, production and distribution through the means of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems.

OT typically focuses on production, efficiency, and employee protection, as well as controlling and protecting physical processes and safety. IT environments are based on how information is transmitted, stored, and used.

According to Group CEO of AVeS Cyber Security, Charl Ueckermann, the core difference between IT and OT is the use of different computing systems. In an IT environment, you use a normal computer, laptop and mobile phone.

Whereas in an OT environment, the computers used are integrated with the machinery in factories which generally run on older windows machines, such as Windows XP and NT 4.0.

With the evolution of technology over the years and the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, processes in industrial infrastructure have become digitised and more complex.

Due to this evolution, OT and IT systems have become more integrated and the convergence of these two environments is still ongoing.

At the dawn of the internet, OT systems never had any real cyber threats, the only threat at the time would be mechanical failure.

However, with the mentioned convergence, the integration of OT and IT proved to be a double-edged sword as this convergence exposed the OT environment to cyber threats that could not only leak sensitive information, but compromise the safety of the work environment and can lead to possible national threats in some cases.

“It opened up a whole can of worms, it gave us a lot of flexibility, it’s helping us reduce costs, it’s helping us to be more efficient. But, at the same time it’s also opening up your normal operational technology environment to viruses, which it was never exposed to before,” says Ueckermann.

 An example of a recent cyber-attack to an OT system would be the incident that took place in July 2021 where Transnet got hacked, which lead to the company's container terminal operating system being shut down. It cost the company millions in losses.

ALSO READ: Data ‘has not been compromised’ in Transnet cyber attack

With the rise of cyber-attacks and South Africa being the target of cyber criminals due to the country's alleged lack of sufficient cyber security protocols; cyber security, especially for OT systems, remains an issue of paramount importance.

In an article published by Security Boulevard, some of the current challenges to OT security are that many OT systems still use legacy protocols that have run out of support or are non-existent, a scarcity of certified OT security professionals, and the need to shut down entire operations for an upgrade.

In most cases, if not all, the downtime to companies' operations might lead to the company losing millions as this may lead to a temporary production halt, which might have a knock-on effect on supply chains and in certain cases, have a negative impact on a country's economy.

OFM News/Bambatha Giko