The results of these simulated attacks can be fed back into the systems’ design before these crucial devices ever leave plant floors. ![]() Whether the device you want to secure is a cyber-physical system used within a smart grid, a self-driving car or an IoT blood pressure monitor, digital twins let security professionals simulate a slew of cyberattacks on physical systems to see how they react while under attack. Here are three exciting use cases for digital twins in cybersecurity The use of digital twins in cybersecurity potentially empowers security teams to get ahead of sophisticated threat actors and reduce risks to cyber-physical systems in manufacturing, IoT devices and consumer smart devices. Potential Uses of Digital Twins in Cybersecurity Modern digital twin technology advanced the concept further by negating any need for physical replicas, ensuring that the same idea could be realized using solely a computer system.ĭigital twins took off in the manufacturing sector around 2013, with use cases including machine health monitoring, systems engineering and prognostics. Engineers fed data reflecting actual flight conditions digitally into these physical replicas to help diagnose problems and run simulations. As far back as NASA’s Apollo missions in the 1960s, astronauts and engineers built physical replicas of spacecraft engines. The origin of digital twin technology is an interesting story in itself. You can use digital twins to run simulations, understand performance, and tweak the underlying system or process represented in the model. These virtual models, accessible via dedicated software or platforms, use machine learning and data modeling to create exact digital counterparts of physical systems, and they’re often fed relevant real-time data by sensors fitted to the actual physical system. There are many different definitions of digital twins out there, but the simplest and most practical one is that it’s a virtual model that represents a physical object or process. The overarching focus for any ICS design is on reliability because any significant downtime in manufacturing, energy or even adjacent sectors like healthcare is intolerable. The outcome was panicked motorists and widespread gas shortages in several states.Īnother facet to consider here is that many (indeed most) OT systems, such as industrial control systems (ICS) aren’t designed with security in mind. The operators evidently felt that close alignment between IT and OT warranted a complete pipeline shutdown. The ransomware attack on the pipeline began on the IT side by compromising a legacy VPN account. ![]() The risks here go beyond the financial into potential safety ramifications.Ī recent incident that exemplifies this risk is The Colonial Pipeline breach. Mismanaged convergence can mean threat actors using malicious tactics and communications from the IT side to hijack the devices that control important industrial processes. One downside, though, is that this interconnectivity greatly expands the attack surface and introduces extra security risks in operational environments, such as plant floors. There are many upsides to this convergence, including cost savings, more efficient processes and better agility in responding to changing conditions. The convergence of information technology and operation technology is a cornerstone feature of modern industrial processes that sees increased connectivity and communication between these formerly siloed environments. IT/OT Convergence and an Expanded Attack Surface
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