Operational Know-how (OT) environments are more and more underneath strain from evolving cyber threats. With digital transformation accelerating throughout industries, the necessity for complete visibility into all related belongings is extra vital than ever. In response to the 2022 OT/ICS Cybersecurity Survey by SANS Institute, almost 40% of commercial organizations reported missing an entire stock of OT belongings—highlighting the pressing want for complete cyber asset visibility. These blind spots should not simply inefficiencies—they’re potential entry factors for attackers.
Prolonged Detection and Response (XDR) presents a strong option to uncover, monitor, and safe these belongings. This weblog explores how XDR safety overcomes the restrictions of conventional community asset discovery strategies and the way Fidelis Elevate® delivers an entire answer tailor-made to OT wants.
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Distinguish actual vs. “pretend” XDR -
Perceive structure & use instances -
Make knowledgeable shopping for selections
The Challenges of Conventional OT Asset Discovery
1. Incomplete Visibility from Community Monitoring
Conventional instruments typically rely solely on community visitors to determine related belongings. This strategy can miss gadgets that aren’t actively speaking or people who use non-standard protocols. In an OT atmosphere, the place many gadgets function intermittently or stay passive, this leads to an incomplete stock.
For instance, community monitoring instruments might not distinguish between completely different working techniques or detect crucial firmware variations. Consequently, vulnerabilities go unnoticed, and safety groups are left blind to actual dangers.
2. Legacy Programs and Siloed Protocols
Many OT environments embrace legacy techniques designed for isolation, not connectivity. These techniques use proprietary communication protocols that almost all IT instruments can’t interpret. Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), Distant Terminal Models (RTUs), and Supervisory Management and Knowledge Acquisition (SCADA) techniques typically differ broadly in age and performance, additional complicating discovery.
The result’s a fragmented safety panorama the place completely different groups deal with separate elements and not using a cohesive understanding of the atmosphere.
3. Dangers of Intrusive Scanning
In contrast to IT environments, the place energetic scanning is normal follow, OT techniques can not tolerate disruption. Many OT belongings run crucial processes that should stay on-line 24/7. Lively scanning can overload gadgets, disrupt communication, and even crash important operations. Low bandwidth and distant environments face further constraints.
This creates a dilemma: how one can obtain full cyber asset visibility with out compromising efficiency or security?
How XDR Solves the Visibility Hole?
Fidelis Elevate® presents an XDR strategy goal constructed for OT environments. As an alternative of counting on a single information supply or methodology, XDR integrates a number of telemetry streams, delivering a extra complete and correct view.
1. Agentless, Non-Intrusive Discovery
Fidelis XDR safety makes use of passive strategies to observe community visitors with out interrupting operations. It additionally helps protected energetic queries that use native system protocols to gather detailed details about related belongings. This hybrid strategy identifies each energetic and dormant belongings, together with:
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Firmware variations -
Put in software program -
Communication ports -
Person configurations
No brokers or software program installations are required, making deployment easy and non-disruptive.
2. Cross-Area Correlation
XDR goes past easy network asset discovery. It correlates information throughout endpoints, community visitors, person exercise, and exterior risk intelligence. This gives full context for every asset:
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The place it’s positioned -
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What position it performs in operations -
What vulnerabilities it introduces
By breaking down silos, XDR offers groups a single supply of reality to information detection and response.
3. Rogue Gadget Detection and Habits Evaluation
Unauthorized gadgets current critical dangers in OT networks. Fidelis Elevate® constantly screens for sudden connections, utilizing behavioral analytics to flag anomalies. Machine studying establishes baseline habits patterns and highlights deviations that will point out compromise.
This proactive detection ensures rogue gadgets don’t slip by way of unnoticed, whereas additionally catching professional gadgets that will have been compromised.
Discover ways to align your safety technique with real-world threats utilizing the MITRE ATT&CK framework.
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Actionable risk modeling steerage -
Ultimate for SOC and IR groups -
Aligns protection to attacker TTPs -
Proactively Safe Programs
5 Key Steps to Attaining Full OT Asset Visibility with XDR
Step 1: Passive and Lively Scanning
Passive discovery captures visitors information from switches and community faucets, figuring out gadgets based mostly on communication habits. To complement this, protected energetic queries use vendor-approved protocols to extract deeper particulars from silent or intermittent belongings.
Step 2: Community Topology Mapping
XDR maps out bodily and logical connections between gadgets. This consists of information flows, communication frequency, and directional visitors patterns. With this data, safety groups can:
- Perceive how threats transfer laterally
- Isolate compromised segments
- Enhance segmentation methods
Step 3: Integration of Multi-Supply Telemetry
A strong asset stock requires inputs from a number of sources. Fidelis Elevate® ingests telemetry from:
- Switches and routers
- Endpoints and management panels
- Configuration recordsdata
- Industrial venture documentation
These inputs are normalized and correlated to color an entire image of your OT panorama.
Step 4: Machine Studying-Based mostly Anomaly Detection
As soon as a baseline is established, machine studying fashions monitor for deviations. These embrace:
- Uncommon system communication
- Sudden person logins
- Configuration drift
This permits detection of refined, multi-step assaults that conventional instruments may miss.
Step 5: OT-Protected Response and Containment
Fidelis Elevate® permits context-aware, automated response actions that don’t disrupt industrial processes. These embrace:
- Blocking suspicious communication
- Isolating compromised belongings
- Alerting human analysts based mostly on asset criticality
All responses align with the MITRE ATT&CK for ICS framework, making certain industry-standard practices.
Overcoming OT-Particular Challenges with Fidelis Elevate®
OT environments convey their very own set of safety complications that normal IT options merely can’t deal with. Fidelis Elevate® tackles these industrial challenges head-on with capabilities constructed particularly for operational expertise.
Dealing with legacy firmware and unsupported OS
Legacy techniques are like that outdated manufacturing unit gear that simply gained’t give up—they maintain operating, however they’re safety nightmares. Many operational techniques run on outdated software program that hasn’t seen a safety replace in years, generally a long time. These techniques grow to be main vulnerability factors, typically going with out patches as a result of updating them may shut down crucial operations.
Fidelis Elevate® addresses this by way of non-intrusive discovery strategies that safely determine legacy software program different instruments miss utterly. You’ll be able to see precisely what unsupported working techniques are operating in your atmosphere with out disrupting operations. This visibility into your technical debt reveals you the place the true dangers disguise.
Minimizing operational danger throughout response
OT response is nothing like IT response. When a risk hits your industrial community, you’ll be able to’t simply isolate techniques with out contemplating what shuts down within the course of. Security comes first, operations second, and conventional safety responses typically ignore each.
Fidelis Elevate® implements OT-safe response capabilities that comprise threats with out stopping manufacturing. The platform runs automated playbooks that observe your incident response procedures whereas making certain community isolation doesn’t interrupt crucial capabilities. When malicious content material wants removing, Fidelis Elevate® handles it routinely with out compromising operational integrity.
Steady stock throughout distributed OT and IT networks
Protecting monitor of belongings throughout sprawling industrial networks looks like attempting to depend transferring targets. Conventional asset administration falls aside when coping with distributed environments the place gadgets come on-line sporadically or run in remoted segments.
Fidelis Elevate® gives real-time stock with danger profiling for each managed and unmanaged belongings. The platform screens containerized workloads that conventional options miss totally. This steady monitoring creates a unified view that bridges your IT and OT domains, supplying you with one full image as an alternative of fragmented snapshots.
Asset prioritization based mostly on danger, habits, and enterprise influence
Not all belongings deserve the identical consideration throughout a safety incident. The query turns into: which threats really matter to what you are promoting operations?
Fidelis Elevate® permits contextual understanding by way of full asset classification that weighs enterprise worth and criticality. Safety groups can focus assets on threats to crucial belongings quite than chasing low-priority alerts. The platform analyzes vulnerability information alongside behavioral indicators, creating danger profiles that mirror actual enterprise influence quite than simply technical severity scores.
Here is what units Fidelis Elevate® aside for OT safety:
Your industrial atmosphere calls for specialised safety that understands operational constraints whereas delivering complete safety protection.
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Establish and neutralize threats quicker -
Acquire full visibility throughout your assault floor -
Automate safety operations for effectivity
Conclusion: From Partial Visibility to Full Management
Operational environments are extra related than ever, and that connectivity comes with danger. Conventional instruments can’t sustain with the complexity and sensitivity of OT techniques. With out a full image of what’s in your community, you’re defending at the hours of darkness.
Fidelis Elevate® brings mild to that darkness. By combining non-intrusive discovery, machine studying, and good response workflows, it offers you full consciousness with out compromising operations.
The journey from blind spots to full visibility begins with understanding your atmosphere. With Fidelis Elevate®, that understanding turns into actionable, empowering your crew to detect, examine, and reply earlier than threats do injury.
In as we speak’s risk panorama, you’ll be able to’t defend what you’ll be able to’t see. XDR with Fidelis Elevate® ensures you by no means miss what issues most.
The submit OT Asset Discovery Utilizing XDR: From Blind Spots to Full Visibility appeared first on Fidelis Safety.
