How to fix unsafe operational technology that threatens the global economy

Today, with the rampant proliferation of cybercrime, a tremendous amount of work is being done to protect our computer networks – to secure our bits and bytes. At the same time, however, not nearly enough work is being done to secure our atoms—namely, the hard physical infrastructure that runs the global economy.

Countries are now teeming with operational technology (OT) platforms that have essentially automated their entire physical infrastructure, whether it’s buildings and bridges, trains and cars, or the industrial equipment and assembly lines that power the economy. But the idea that a hospital bed can be hacked – or an airplane or a bridge – is still a very new concept. We need to start taking such threats very seriously because they can cause catastrophic damage.

For example, imagine an attack on a major power plant that leaves the northeastern United States without heat during a particularly brutal cold spell. Think of the sheer amount of hardship – and even death – these types of attacks would cause as homes go dark, businesses become cut off from customers, hospitals struggle to function, and airports close.

The Stuxnet virus, which emerged more than a decade ago, was the first indication that physical infrastructure could be a prime target for cyber threats. Stuxnet was a malicious worm that infected the software of at least 14 industrial sites in Iran, including a uranium enrichment plant.

The Stuxnet virus has since mutated and spread to other industrial and power-producing facilities around the world. The reality is that critical infrastructure everywhere is now at risk from Stuxnet-like attacks. Indeed, security flaws lurk in the critical systems used in key industries around the world, including energy, water, transportation and manufacturing.

Built-in vulnerability

The problem is that operational technology manufacturers have never designed their products with security in mind. As a result, trillions of dollars worth of OT assets are highly vulnerable today. The vast majority of these products are built on microcontrollers that communicate over insecure Controller Area Network (CAN) buses. The CAN protocol is used everywhere from passenger cars and farm equipment to medical instruments and building automation. Yet it does not include direct support for secure communications. It also lacks the all-important authentication and authorization. For example, a CAN frame does not contain information about the address of the sender or the receiver.

As a result, CAN bus networks are becoming increasingly vulnerable to malicious attacks, especially as the cyber attack landscape expands. This means we need new approaches and solutions to better secure CAN buses and protect vital infrastructure.

Before we talk about what this security should look like, let’s take a look at what can happen if a CAN bus network is compromised. A CAN bus essentially serves as a shared communication channel for multiple microprocessors. For example, in a car, the CAN bus allows the engine system, combustion system, braking system, and lighting system to communicate seamlessly with each other over the shared channel.

But because the CAN bus is inherently insecure, hackers can disrupt that communication and start sending arbitrary messages that still conform to the protocol. Imagine the chaos that would ensue if even a small-scale hack of automated vehicles occurred, turning self-driving cars into a swarm of potentially deadly objects.

The challenge for the automotive industry – indeed for all major industries – is to design a security mechanism for CAN with strong built-in protection, high fault tolerance and low cost. That’s why I see huge opportunities for startups that can address this problem and ultimately protect all of our physical assets – every plane, train, production system, and so on – from cyber-attacks.

How OT security would work

What should such a company look like? Well, for starters, it could try to solve the security problem by adding an intelligence layer — as well as an authentication layer — to an aging CAN bus. This kind of solution can intercept data from the CAN and deconstruct the protocol to enrich and warn anomalous communications over OT data buses. With such a solution in place, operators of high-performance physical equipment gain real-time, actionable insights into anomalies and intrusions in their systems – thus better equipped to thwart any cyber-attack.

These types of companies are likely to come from the defense industry. It will have deep fundamental technology in the embedded data plane, as well as the ability to analyze various machine protocols.

With the right team and support, this is easily a $10 billion+ opportunity. There are few obligations more important than protecting our physical infrastructure. Therefore, there is an urgent need for new solutions with a strong focus on protecting critical assets against cyber-attacks.

Adit Singh is partner of Cota capital.