Security is a complex, multi-layered discipline that touches upon many notions: from protection and trust to resilience and offense. In today’s connected societies, security needs to permeate all aspects of modern technologies to support successful digital and cyber ecosystems. A weak link in a chain can present an open door to a threat or be at risk from misconfiguration. Each link, each layer must be secured.
These insights will help you better understand the role and the value of enabling digital and cyber security.
Industrial Cybersecurity
The Emerging Vendor Ecosystem for Supply Chain Management Protection in Operational Technology (OT)
While asset visibility and protection are increasingly maturing technologies for industrial operators, the secure management of the OT supply chain is still nascent. Third-party risk management and supply chain governance are emerging disciplines, with new solutions focused on due diligence exercises, regular audits, security assurance plans, Firmware Over-the-Air (FOTA) update integrity, and access management for suppliers and service providers.
In large part, these concepts are directly tied to improving industrial operators’ overall cyber resilience and are part and parcel of lifecycle management of assets, networks, and operations that come with Industry 4.0 integration.
Critical Infrastructures Primed to Adopt Enabling Cybersecurity Solutions
Industrial operators are increasingly incorporating disruptive technologies in their migration to Industry 4.0, driving better appreciation of cybersecurity requirements for cyber-physical systems, IIoT, smart production, and additive manufacturing, among others. This demand is having a knock-on effect on industries classed as critical infrastructure, where the transition to Industry 4.0 is slower, and cybersecurity continues to rely on traditional Information Technology (IT) security toolsets to protect OT (i.e., remote access management, OT asset inventory, industrial firewalls, etc.).
However, the emergence of AI and ML, automation, and orchestration to enable new security applications, such as fast user switching, hot patching, Industrial Control System (ICS) cloudification, network probes, and secured PLC programming, are slowly but surely appealing to critical infrastructure operators.
IoT Cybersecurity
Optimizing Data Security in Telematic to Enable Intelligence-Driven Monetization
Secure data management for automotive telematics is becoming increasingly important for vehicle manufacturers (VMs), Tier One suppliers, telcos, and insurance companies. Almost every aspect of the software-defined vehicle is set to include constantly evolving cybersecurity technologies at the hardware, software, and network level, with telematics data security being one of the core operations.
The drive to increase the reliability of telematics data, to understand how to better monetize it, and to enable intelligence-driven autonomous vehicle operations is fueling vehicle digitization, fleet management, and Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) applications. In the telematics security market, this is reflected through the steady evolution of telematics control units (TCUs) and the networking functionalities they enable.
Secure Smart Electricity Metering
The growing deployment of smart electricity meters worldwide due to the transition toward Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is increasing secure device identity management demands for cellular and Low-Power Wide-Area (LPWA) smart meters.
Telco Cybersecurity
The Drive Toward Embedded Cellular Connectivity Continues
With the hyper-connected world on the horizon, the drive toward embedded cellular connectivity continues, served via Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) form factors, such as eSIM and Integrated SIM (iSIM). From consumer electronics, cutting across a variety of device types from smartphones, tablets, laptops, and wearables to myriad Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and IoT applications including smart meters, asset trackers, and automobiles, cellular connections are significantly on the increase, and how these connections are being activated, managed, and serviced is transforming.
SIM hardware vendors are shifting business models and dynamics, moving away from one-off revenue streams associated with SIM card supply, toward reoccurring revenue models driven by eSIM management platforms to manage the complete lifecycle of devices and things from first activation to end of life.
The Advent of 5G Networks
For operators, targeting new enterprise markets, through slicing or private networks, will mean that they have the opportunity to offer tailored network security solutions for the wide variety of use cases that will present themselves in Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC), Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), and Massive Machine-Type Communication (mMTC). This also provides an opportunity for third parties, from network equipment operators to pure-play cybersecurity vendors, to start targeting enterprise customers in this 5G telco space.
Trusted Device Solutions
The Chip Shortage Fallout
On top of accelerating digitization is the chip shortage impact, which is a continuing theme, and an impactful challenge across all security hardware component markets, as it relates to the manufacture, supply, allocation processes, and significant increases to chip ASPs. Although a relatively new challenge and one considered a by-product of the COVID-19 pandemic, the timeline to a “business as usual” scenario is not clear cut, and all ecosystem players are looking extremely closely at the chip shortage and how strategies can be put in place to help minimize operational impacts.
