Wanted: Robot Wranglers Who Can Fight Hackers

According to research commissioned by Telstra International, North Asian organizations rapidly adopting fourth industrial revolution (4IR) technologies are putting their transformations at risk due to low security maturity.

The global arm of Australian telco giant Telstra says that while 50% of Operational Technology (OT) systems will be connected to corporate IT systems in North Asia in 2024, up from 38% in 2023, only 13% of those surveyed are at an advanced level of security readiness and 60% are at a basic level.

The report, “Securing Industry 4.0: The Challenges and Opportunities of IT/OT Convergence,” was completed by Omdia for Telstra to evaluate the state of OT and IT convergence in North Asia, assessing maturity, benefits and opportunities.

The study of 250 business and technology leaders in mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and the Taiwan region found that in the race to Industry 4.0, digital and data-centric businesses are flocking to technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), AI, and big data to accelerate digital transformation.

This is fuelling the integration of previously separate functions across OT and IT to streamline and enable data flow for industrial operations in sectors like manufacturing, healthcare, retail/wholesale, transport, logistics and shipping.

With 85% of businesses expecting benefits from IT/OT convergence, the rush to integrate is accelerating, and 76% of North Asia businesses have already digitized some existing manual processes.

"As businesses rush headlong into a digital-first era of new technologies, they face heightened cybersecurity risks arising from an accelerated convergence of IT and OT systems,” said Paul Abfalter, head of North Asia at Telstra.

“The race to integrate previously unconnected systems is exposing significant operational siloes and significant gaps in the ability to mitigate the emerging cybersecurity risks.”

While IT and OT convergence has many benefits, businesses are grappling with several major barriers to successful implementation.

One glaring capabilities gap is the need for specialized skills that cover both IT and OT security, as threats to IT systems are now directly impacting OT systems.

The Telstra-Omdia study reveals that 88% of organizations have had to manage a security incident that directly impacted OT production environments. In comparison, 74% of attacks affecting critical infrastructure operations can be traced back to corporate IT systems.

Interestingly, only 26% of today's attacks tracked back to OT systems. Such systems have traditionally not been connected to the Internet, potentially posing an even greater risk from a cybersecurity perspective.

The emergence of this new risk vector is causing 73% of organizations to say they plan to outsource IT/OT security fully or partially to a third party. 

Image credit: iStockphoto/Agor2012