Secure Your Network!

August 8, 2017

Your network is not secure! Whether you have all the security in place that’s possible or have not even thought about security – your network is not secure! Sadly, no network can be 100% secure. The best that you can hope for is to make it very difficult to hack.

Let’s start at one of the extremes – network security, what’s that. “Plausible deniability is not a security strategy.”
Manufacturing is the most targeted category for hackers. Not banks. Not retail. Manufacturers. And within the manufacturing category the most targeted companies are small to medium-sized companies.

What can you do? What should you do? You will find both the futility of denying the problem and some steps to remediate the problem at my year-old blog post, PROFINET Network Security.
At the other extreme – we’ve implemented every possible precaution including

  • Zone and conduit
  • DMZ
  • Data Diode
  • Firewalls
  • Deep Packet Inspection
  • Intrusion Detection
  • Filling all USB ports with epoxy
  • Password rules – complexity and frequent required change
  • Removed CD drives
  • Installed antivirus software
  • Engaged the workforce is best practices
  • Physically protected important servers

It’s not enough!

A motivated hacker can breach any network. So, have a plan in place for when it happens – not if it happens, when.
The possibility of being hacked should make you nervous (plausible deniability is not a security strategy).

Recommendations for those of you anywhere on this spectrum of “What me worry” to “We did everything possible” –

–Carl Henning