Secured Remote Access & Zero Trust
OT/ICS networks in industrial businesses are very complex, multi-site, and multi-vendor. For justifiable reasons, many businesses grant privileged remote access to employees, vendors, operators, integrators, and other third-party contractors. Remote access to do essential repairs, for example, minimizes costly travel, saves time, and provides better customer service.
Our solutions make the difficult task of installing, managing, and verifying remote access to OT/ICS networks easier and more automated. Secure Remote Access solutions are typically vendor independent. For user identification and authentication, they interact with IAM or PAM systems, and they provide granular role-based access down to individual instructions and OT devices.
Remote access to a smart meter, for example, will be permitted, but only to a single configuration parameter and not to any others. Remote access solutions typically handle both read and write permissions. Other methods, such as data replication via a unidirectional gateway to a DMZ, should allow read-only remote access.
Secure Remote Access solutions establish and manage a direct point-to-point VPN tunnel between the remote user and the accessed device. Users can safely connect to current IoT devices and legacy OT systems using modular vendor-agnostic components that function flawlessly with one another and with internet, network, and device protocols.
Zero Trust Access solutions allow industrial businesses to limit remote access to a certain user, device, data stream, application, file, duration, and so on. Hackers who manage to steal credentials no longer have broad permissions that allow them to use their initial access as a launching pad to breach other sections of the network or launch assaults from a network zone since only a limited set of interactions are authorized.
Even if hackers gain access, their options are limited.
Zero Trust remote access solutions are intended to provide access across the levels of the OT/IoT ecosystem, such as from the OT through the DMZ to the IT networks. Instead of using a VPN connection, which needs external users to have an internal IP address, Zero Trust solutions use a Tunnel and Proxy that fits into common infrastructures and safely relays data.
Both cloud and on-premises deployments are supported by Zero Trust remote access solutions.
Remote connectivity to the industrial environment has become increasingly important to maintain these essential systems operational, especially after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
