Zero Trust Blueprint: Safeguarding Manufacturing Operations from Cyber Threats

What is zero trust?

Zero trust is a cybersecurity concept that helps enable secure access for users and devices and within apps, across networks, and clouds. In a zero trust environment, no person, device, or resource is considered secure. Networks are treated as continuously under attack and use a series of verifications to grant access to a specific user, at a specific time, to use a specific resource or functionality. This level of authentication has become increasingly necessary with the growth of the cloud, increase of SaaS applications, and increase in users accessing external networks.

For zero trust as a framework to be effective, it must do four things¹:

1. Establish trust for users
2. Enforce trust-based access
3. Continuously verify trust
4. Respond to changes in trust

Zero trust in manufacturing

Cybersecurity breaches are a risk to manufacturing companies and costly. The global average total cost of a data breach in manufacturing in 2022 was $4.35 million.² Cyber attacks on a factory can cause closures and exposure to sensitive information. This halts manufacturers’ operations and sets them back financially.  Manufacturing factories are becoming increasingly connected and have several devices, sensors, and endpoints engaging over a network. These connections are needed for employees and machines to work efficiently. Implementing zero trust into your manufacturing plant is crucial to protect your operations.

Zero trust implemented in the remote workforce featuring Hitachi

In 2020, Hitachi had to restructure their operations and move their 350k employees worldwide to a work-from-anywhere model. This meant more devices connected and accessing the network. To protect the company from attacks, Hitachi turned to Cisco SASE framework with cloud-based Duo Security. Using Cisco Secure, Hitachi connected more than 155k devices to the cloud securely and effectively.³ To authenticate all devices connected to the network, they leveraged our Cisco Secure Access by Duo as well. With Duo, employees were able to verify trust quickly and securely. This helps Hitachi stay secure against cyberattacks without compromising efficiency.

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Sources

¹ There’s no better time for zero trust

² Cost of data breach 2022 (Ponemon)

³ Hitachi fortifies its remote workforce with zero trust

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