How Fortinet & Dragos Partner to Improve OT Cybersecurity

Dragos and Fortinet partner to offer an OT cybersecurity solution that enhances visibility, improves cyber event correlation, and enforces policies with actionable responses. This partnership empowers customers to make more informed decisions when implementing segmentation and preventative controls.

Key Takeaways from Fortinet’s 2024 OT Cybersecurity Report

The convergence of Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) has brought new cybersecurity challenges. Fortinet’s “2024 State of Operational Technology and Cybersecurity” report reveals crucial insights into this evolving landscape.

Increased Number of Cyber Incidents

  • 31% of organizations faced 6+ intrusions in the past year (up from 11%)
  • Ransomware attacks on industrial organizations increased by 50%

Changing Threat Landscape

  • Phishing emails remain the top threat (76% of organizations affected)
  • Business email compromise affects 65% of respondents
  • Ransomware and wiper attacks jumped from 32% to 56%

Shifting OT Security Responsibilities

  • More CISOs now oversee OT security (27% in 2024, up from 17%)
  • VP/Directors of Networking Engineering/Operations increasingly manage OT cybersecurity
  • These findings indicate that OT security is becoming a higher-priority issue at an executive level

Maturing Security Postures

  • 20% of organizations have basic visibility and segmentation (up from 13%)
  • 23% use advanced orchestration and automation (up from 13%)
  • Organizations are increasingly measuring success based on their ability to respond to and recover from incidents
  • The top success metric reported was “response time to security incidents/return-to-service time,” highlighting a shift towards cyber resilience

Persistent Visibility Challenges

  • Only 5% claim 100% visibility of OT systems (down from 10%)
  • This could indicate a more realistic assessment of their current asset visibility

Growing Impact of Cyber Intrusions

  • 52% reported brand awareness degradation
  • 55% experienced operational outages
  • 43% suffered loss of critical data or intellectual property

Dragos Year in Review: Additional Insights, Similar Trends

See the Dragos OT Cybersecurity Year in Review annual report for more insights on cybersecurity trends affecting industrial organizations.

  • 70% of ransomware attacks targeted manufacturing
  • 21 unique threat groups identified, including three new ones
  • 54% of penetration tests found remote access security issues
  • 28% of engagements revealed segmentation or firewall configuration problems
  • 70% of OT-related cyber incidents originate from IT environments

5 Recommendations to Improve OT Security

1 | Implement Comprehensive Asset Inventory

  • Deploy the Dragos Platform for automated asset inventory of IT, IoT, and IIoT devices on your OT network
  • Non-invasive, passive-first monitoring protects operational uptime

2 | Enhance Threat Detection

3 | Implement OT-Specific Vulnerability Management

4 | Strengthen Incident Response

5 | Leverage Collective Intelligence

  • Join Dragos Neighborhood Keeper program
  • Benefit from anonymously shared intelligence across industries

Fortinet and Dragos Partnership Benefits

Discover more about the Fortinet and Dragos OT cybersecurity solution.

Integrated Security Solution

  • FortiGate NGFW integrates with the Dragos Platform
  • Offers asset visibility, inventory management, and threat detection

Simplified Deployment

  • Addresses challenges in selecting optimal cybersecurity technologies

Enhanced Workflow Automation

  • Improves efficiency and response time for security analysts
  • Enables human-in-the-loop for effective incident response
Your OT Cybersecurity Solution – How Fortinet & Dragos Work Together

Partners:
Fortinet
Curtis Chmilar is a Director of Professional Services at the industrial cybersecurity company Dragos, Inc. where he leads a team of Operational Technology (OT) cybersecurity consultants in performing active defense inside of ICS/SCADA networks. In this capacity, he is responsible for a range of services including penetration testing and proactive assessments for the industrial community.