REPORT FROM THE MEETING "OT/IT NETWORK SOLUTIONS IN MAINTAINING BUSINESS CONTINUITY AND AS A BARRIER TO RANSOWARE ATTACKS" AT CONCORDIA DESIGN IN POZNAŃ – NOVEMBER 29, 2024

On Friday, November 29, we had the pleasure of hosting Customers and engineers from Cisco Systems at a business breakfast dedicated to network solutions for industry. Extreme conditions in production halls, steel mills, on the railway or in the power industry place high demands on network devices - high and low temperatures, dust, high humidity and an aggressive atmosphere mean that none of the devices designed for office applications, such as the Catalyst 9000 series, will provide stable operation for OT systems. That is why there is a whole range of products dedicated to industry. In addition to resistance to environmental conditions, industrial devices should be resistant to various types of threats from cybercriminals.

The meeting was divided into several modules.

More about UpGreat

The meeting began with a short presentation by UpGreat Systemy Komputerowe, known for specializing in network solutions and a long-time partner of Cisco Systems. Participants had the opportunity to learn about the history of the company, its offer and clients.

The UpGreat presentation is available for download -> here.

What are the general characteristics of industrial networks and what are their use cases?

In this part of the presentation, Michał Małuszek from Cisco told the audience in which industries industrial networks operate (production, energy, petrochemical and gas, energy, railways, road infrastructure and others), as well as in what conditions devices operate (from -50°C to +75°C, humidity, dust, vibrations, aggressive atmosphere). The portfolio and advantages of Cisco industrial devices were also presented.

The presentation on industrial networks is available for download -> here.

What is the specificity of industrial wireless networks?

Marcin Szreter from Cisco presented specific Cisco wireless solutions and showed that wireless networks are not just WiFi. Some of the applications require extremely low latency, roaming without packet loss or data transmission from objects moving at very high speed. Cisco Ultra-Reliable Wireless Backhaul (URWB) was also presented - a wireless network "as reliable as fiber". URWB means latency < 10ms, transfer up to 4.8Gbps, unlicensed frequencies and availability up to 99.995%.

The presentation on industrial wireless networks is available for download -> here.

How OT and IT networks can be integrated and what is Cisco SDA

In the next session, Miłosz Wrona talked about the family of software defined networks solutions – Cisco SDA (Software Defined Access). This approach allows for the creation of a structure (fabric) of wired and wireless devices that provide secure, efficient, reliable access to the network for end devices based on user identification. Cisco SD-Access enables efficient management of access to the network as a whole from a single console – everyone has access to what and only what they should have. The network is managed using Cisco DNA Center with the support of Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine).

The Cisco SDA presentation is available for download -> here.

How to keep your OT network safe

Finally, Marcin Szreter once again brought up the subject of OT network security. The specificity of some devices used in industry, until recently not having contact with IT networks, is the possibility of various vulnerabilities exposing companies to disruptions in the continuity of key processes. At the same time, the requirements of the NIS-2 directive will soon be imposed on many companies in the industrial sector. Cisco Systems proposes a comprehensive approach to OT security issues based on Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), division of the network into trust zones related to, for example, production lines and active analysis of events in the network and response to threats (Incident Investigation & Response). In this context, Cisco Talos Threat Intelligence and Talos Incident Response were discussed.

Additionally, full situational awareness in the OT environment is provided by Cisco Cyber Vision Center and Cyber Vision Sensors, which enable passive analysis of network communications to continuously inventory the network and obtain information about possible vulnerabilities of used devices.

The presentation on OT network security is available for download -> here.

We believe that the business breakfast with UpGreat and Cisco was a success thanks to the presence of our guests, the competence of the engineers and the excellent organization of the meeting, for which the Concordia Design team in Poznań was responsible.

We invite you to contact us – together with engineers from Cisco Polska, we will be happy to present the topics discussed, prepare a dedicated online presentation, come to you for a meeting or implement a POC.

Thank you!