Industrial Cyber Security: What is Application Whitelisting?
- 1. Industrial Cyber Security What is Application Whitelisting?
- 2. Industrial Cyber Security • Application Whitelisting is an emerging approach to combating viruses and malware • The basic concept is to create a list that permits only good known files to execute, rather than attempting to block malicious code and activity • First attempt to Whitelist approach is thru email management – eliminating spam and allowing delivery of messages only wanted 2
- 3. Industrial Cyber Security Whitelisting vs. Blacklisting • Blacklisting blocks or removes known harmful software • Blacklisting leaves a time gap between when new malware is detected and its inclusion in the latest security update • During this time gap, opportunity exists for breaches to take place. Malicious code exploit the vulnerability • With these increasing threats, Whitelisting provides additional defense 3
- 4. Industrial Cyber Security The Impact on the Control Systems Industry • Breaches to industrial cyber security can range from annoying to financially harmful and even approach levels of national security • For control systems, these exploitations can involve safety issues with the potential loss of life or damage to the environment • Risks represent solid reasons to white list. Whitelist application is designed to prevent unauthorized applications from running 4
- 5. Industrial Cyber Security The Impact on the Control Systems Industry • With industrial cyber security, whitelisting solutions must undergo same level of scrutiny that was used on anti- virus solutions • With industrial cyber security, the focus of Business IT is different. The CIA’s (confidentiality, integrity and availability) level of importance is reversed • Whitelisting was designed and architected for the enterprise environment, industrial control systems industry has to overcome unique challenges 5
- 6. Industrial Cyber Security The Impact on the Control Systems Industry • List of challenges applies not only to whitelisting but to most mechanisms deployed for industrial control systems • All industrial cyber security solutions must extensively test new technologies on core control systems 6
- 7. Industrial Cyber Security About the Author Rick Kaun is global industrial IT solutions business development lead at Honeywell Process Solutions, a pioneer in automation control for more than 35 years. For more information about Industrial Cyber Security Solutions, please visit https://www.honeywellprocess.com/en- US/explore/services/industrial-it- solutions/Pages/default.aspx today. 7