Food & Beverage

The food and beverage sector is a highly specialised and heavily automated area of manufacturing. Due to the potential impact on society of a disruption to our food and beverage supply chain, the EU (and likely soon the UK) classes the sector as part of Critical National Infrastructure, which brings additional regulation and scrutiny those organisations’ cyber security. We have seen a number of successful cyber attacks on the food and beverage industry, and it’s potential impact to not only those organisations, but also to those it supplies is significant.

Why IS THE FOOD & BEVERAGE SECTOR vulnerable to cyber attacks?

Food and beverage producers, like many industrial organisations, want to see efficiencies in their automation systems. For this reason, they are investing in newer supervisory and data analysis systems (Industry 4.0) which connect existing Operational Technology (OT) networks with Information Technology (IT) networks and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) networks.

Unfortunately, this opens up the OT network to increased threat of cyber attack. If disruption were to occur on OT systems, then business continuity could slow down to a complete halt.

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The reasons for cyber attacks on large scale companies are many, but include:

  • State-based attacks

  • Corporate espionage

  • Disgruntled employees

  • Accidental/Unknowing actors

  • or a combination of any/all of the above

Ask yourself

  • How are you managing cyber security risk?

  • How are you protecting against cyber attacks?

  • How are you detecting cyber security events?

  • How are you minimising the impact of those incidents?

Cyber Security Regulation - Your responsibilities

Although not all food and beverage producers are classed as critical national infrastructure, many are likely to fall under this definition in the future, or be put under pressure as members of the supply chain of an organisation which is. From a cyber security perspective it is advised to follow the NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF), which is tailored to owners and administrators of OT. This is the chosen framework for the NIS Directive in the UK.

We can help you

We have years of experience in cyber security, digital forensics, incident response and software engineering. We also understand the unique challenges and requirements of Operational Technologies (OT). We develop software solutions from the ground up with these OT-specific challenges and requirements in mind, and we know that we cannot simply re-purpose (or rebrand) existing IT tools.

Perhaps you would like to make the whole NIS Directive auditing process a lot simpler, and a bit more collaborative - avoiding complex excel spreadsheets with dodgy versioning. Profile is built with the NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF) at its core, with more standards and regulations being supported. If this sounds of interest, then Profile is definitely for you.

Maybe you are looking for a more in-depth understanding of the OT assets and their vulnerabilities, but in a way that is automated but still safety and security critical. Dot currently has support for Modbus, Siemens S7, DNP-3, Ethernet-IP and more. If this sounds of interest, then Dot is for you.

Or perhaps you are looking for something a bit more bespoke, or require some consultancy. If we can help, we will. If we can’t help, then we will work with our partners to deliver the services and systems that you require.

Contact us today to get a quote, or to just chat about possibilities - with a guarantee of no hard-sell.
hello@awencollective.com