“5G networks are expected to improve OT environments with faster data transfer and lower latency. However, 5G networks entail new cybersecurity challenges and vulnerabilities that must be addressed,” Ruchin Kumar, vice president – South Asia, Futurex, an enterprise data security firm said.
Operational technology is hardware and software that detects or causes a change, through the direct monitoring and/or control of industrial equipment, assets, processes and events. For 5G use cases like factory automation, securing the OT components of the factory floor will become important to ensure smooth operations.
The OT security market in India in FY22 was estimated at $600 million and is expected to grow in the mid-20 percent in FY23. India accounts for the bulk of the South Asia OT security market which estimates peg at $800 million for FY22.
For telcos, the enterprise business is expected to drive 5G-related revenue and security will be a major factor in scaling up industry use cases around the next gen telecom technology.
While it did not comment on the OT security measures taken by the telco for 5G industrial use cases, Vodafone Idea said that it has developed a security portfolio under Vi Business with partners like Arbor, Fortinet, First Wave, Cisco, IBM, Trend Micro, and Palo Alto.
“Our hybrid network and security operation support and in-house team of accredited engineers in partnership with technology subject matter experts provides efficient problem management and incident response,” Arvind Nevatia, chief enterprise business officer, Vi added.
Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel did not respond to queries sent by ET at press time.
When it comes to enterprise use cases, the threat is two-fold – data breach, and data manipulation. “The theft of any enterprise’s data will lead to obvious business challenges, but with data manipulation, the loss to business could be massive,” explained Praveen Yeleswarapu, head – product marketing & engagements, BluSapphire, a cybersecurity firm.
For example, if the dashboard of a factory is compromised, it could be rigged to show false inventory levels, leading to a breakdown in the supply chain. Similarly, a compromised device could allow threat actors (hackers) to manipulate the coordinates of an oil dig, causing the rig to go to the wrong location, resulting in business loss.
“5G adoptions bring a lot of challenges along; Untrusted applications or devices, much larger attack surface and threat containment to name a few apart from existing threat vectors,” added Pritam Shah, assistant vice president – OT / IoT Security at Inspira, also a cybersecurity firm.
Recognising the threat, cybersecurity firms have started developing products and services to specifically address the issue.
For example, firms are investing in artificial intelligence-based cloud controller platforms that help enforce multi factor authentication and analyse and infer abnormal communication patterns between OT devices.
“Also, the recent ability for 5G mobile network operators to slice their physical networks into portions that can be assigned to individual companies or ecosystems for their dedicated use and thus isolating the traffic will translate to enhanced security,” Guharajan Sivakumar, founder and chief technology officer, Aprecomm, a network security firm added.
Also recognising the importance of OT security in 5G industrial use cases, the government has set up a committee that will formulate guidelines for connected devices including those used in industrial automation.
“The National Centre of Communication Security under the DoT had formed a 5G Security Framework Committee to frame / recommend controls for devices including IOT devices in February 2022 (in preparation for 5G launch later in the year) which has representation by COAI, DoT and the IITs,” an executive from a private telco, also part of the committee, said.
