Jul 12, 2024
Cyber-Physical Systems Security for Food & Beverage Industries
Driven by Industry 4.0 trends, the food and beverage industry’s shift toward smart manufacturing has led to significant advancements. The integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions into production lines enhances quality, efficiency and compliance with the high food safety standards required to ensure consumer safety.
However, on the digital transformation journey that the food and beverage sector is undertaking, cybersecurity has emerged as a critical concern. As food and beverage companies increasingly automate and optimize operations across production, processing, distribution, and retail, exploitable vulnerabilities can arise from misconfigured security settings, abnormal system permissions, lack of staff awareness, and legacy systems that are difficult to maintain. Attacks on these companies can disrupt food production and distribution, leading to shortages and price hikes. Moreover, they pose risks of food contamination, exposing consumers to the serious threat of foodborne illnesses.
Cyber Risks in the Food and Beverage Industry
Recent incidents, such as the ransomware attack on meat packaging giant JBS that forced it offline, underscore the vulnerabilities within the industry. These incidents reveal a growing trend of cybercriminals targeting the food supply chain, elevating the importance of securing food supply chains against both domestic and international threats. Cyberattacks transcend technical challenges, potentially disrupting daily life and threatening our food supply.
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Safety
Cyberattacks can cause costly downtime and potentially alter processing conditions, endangering product safety, plant workers, and customers. For instance, a compromised system could result in the mishandling of food, leading to contamination and widespread health hazards. Ensuring the integrity of production processes is paramount to maintaining public trust and safeguarding public health.
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Legacy Systems
Legacy systems are vulnerable to attacks and difficult to update. Running on legacy software without technical support, they are prime targets for attackers. However, integrating them with new technologies opens more avenues for infiltration. Replacing or updating these systems is financially challenging, requiring substantial investment and risking production disruptions. Thus, many companies continue using them despite the security risks.
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Supply Chain
The food supply chain is a complex, global network that relies on diverse technology systems. This complexity complicates consistent protection against cyber threats. Each link in the chain, from production to distribution, must be secure to prevent breaches that could halt operations or lead to tampering with products. The interconnected nature of these systems means that a vulnerability in one area can have cascading effects throughout the entire supply chain.
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Resilience
Protecting complex, globally distributed supply chains from sophisticated cyber threats while ensuring compliance with stringent regulatory standards is a daunting task. Resilience in this context means not only having robust defensive measures in place but also being able to quickly recover from incidents to minimize disruption. This requires a combination of advanced technology, continuous monitoring, and a well-coordinated response strategy.
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Compliance
Stringent regulatory requirements, such as the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in the U.S. and the NIS2 Directive in Europe, mandate compliance and impose severe penalties, including fines and shutdowns, for non-compliance. Adhering to these regulations is not only a legal obligation but also a critical component of a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. Organizations must stay up to date with evolving standards and ensure that their practices and technologies are aligned with regulatory expectations to avoid punitive measures and protect their reputation.
The Cornerstones of Security in Food and Beverage Industries
TXOne Networks has developed a new management approach that applies OT Zero Trust principles to the protection of Cyber-Physical Systems of the food and beverage industries. This approach uses preventive countermeasures to simplify compliance with best practices for manufacturing infrastructure while addressing specific CPS security challenges. By doing so, it effectively safeguards factory CPS from cyber threats.
Reduce Attack Surfaces
Reducing CPS attack surfaces through supply chain security, secure remote access, and vulnerability management is critical for maintaining a secure and resilient OT environment.
- Supply Chain Security
Protecting the supply chain is crucial because each link presents a potential vulnerability. A compromised supplier can introduce malware into an otherwise secure system, impacting the entire network. Implementing strict vetting processes and regular security assessments mitigates these risks. This comprehensive security approach ensures vulnerabilities are addressed before exploitation, maintaining the integrity and reliability of the OT environment.
- Secure Remote Access
With the increasing demand for remote access, especially following global events like the COVID-19 pandemic, secure remote access has become vital. Unauthorized remote access is a common attack vector for cybercriminals. Therefore, robust remote access protocols must be implemented, ensuring that only authorized personnel can interact with critical OT systems.
- Vulnerability Management
Effective vulnerability management is essential for maintaining a secure OT environment. By addressing new vulnerabilities as soon as they’re discovered, companies can prevent attackers from exploiting them. This proactive approach involves regular system updates, patch management, and comprehensive security audits. Continuously managing vulnerabilities significantly reduces attack surfaces and fortifies systems against evolving threats.
Reduce Attack Vectors
Reducing attack vectors is also essential for maintaining a secure and resilient OT environment. Endpoint hardening, anti-malware solutions, and abnormal behavior detection are key strategies that significantly mitigate risks.
- Endpoint Hardening
By securing each endpoint, organizations can significantly reduce the number of attack vectors available to cybercriminals. This includes implementing access control policies, disabling unnecessary applications and services, and utilizing allowlisting.
- Endpoint Protection
Endpoint protection solutions are crucial for defending against a wide range of cyber threats. Continuous scanning and real-time threat detection protect systems from damage, preventing the spread of malware and minimizing its impact.
- Abnormal Behavior Detection
Detecting abnormal behavior is crucial for identifying potential security incidents that traditional security measures might overlook. By monitoring deviations from normal activity, such as unexpected user actions, unusual network traffic, or anomalous system processes, organizations can quickly identify threats and respond.
Risk Mitigation
Effective risk mitigation in OT environments requires a comprehensive approach, including network segmentation, network trust list, and continuous security monitoring. These strategies play crucial roles in identifying, containing, and responding to potential threats, thereby maintaining the integrity and security of critical systems.
- Network Segmentation
Network segmentation limits the spread of malware and other malicious activities. If one segment is compromised, attackers cannot easily move laterally to other parts of the network; this contains the impact of the attack.
- Network Trust List
Robust network policies align network usage with security best practices, preventing unauthorized access and misuse of resources. By defining and enforcing these rules, organizations can maintain control over their network environment, ensuring compliance with security standards and regulatory requirements.
- Security Monitoring
Continuous security monitoring is essential for early detection of potential threats and vulnerabilities. By analyzing network traffic, system logs, and user behavior, security teams can identify suspicious activities and respond promptly to mitigate risks. This proactive approach helps prevent minor issues from escalating into major security breaches.
Pioneering Sustainable Cybersecurity for Food and Beverage Manufacturing with TXOne Networks
TXOne Networks has played a pivotal role in establishing an asset lifecycle defense framework for the food manufacturing industry and its supply chain. From the early stages of equipment design, TXOne has integrated critical cybersecurity measures to secure modern smart factories. Their solutions suite effectively addresses the full lifecycle protection needs of key assets in the food manufacturing sector. Leveraging their advanced CPSDR (Cyber-Physical Systems Detection and Response) technology, TXOne adroitly meets the industry's demand for deep defense, offering robust coverage from advanced process protection to facility security management. This approach ensures that food manufacturing facilities are thoroughly safeguarded at every stage of the asset lifecycle.
Security Inspection
TXOne's Element ensures asset integrity through quick, installation-free scans, effectively protecting air-gapped environments and strengthening supply chain security. It organizes information, exports clean scanning reports, and provides a detailed overview of assets, including type, OS, missing patches, and critical vulnerabilities.
Multi-Method Threat Defense
TXOne's security defenses encompass pattern matching, configuration lockdown, and application use controls, collectively enhancing overall security coverage.
Cyber-Physical Systems Detection and Response
Stellar prevents unintended device alterations—such as malware, unauthorized access, and malicious modifications—by analyzing fingerprints at the device agent level, safeguarding operational stability.
Micro-Segmentation
TXOne Edge is a comprehensive industrial next generation firewall and IPS solution specifically engineered to segment OT networks from other environments or networks, whether it be through logical or physical means. Organizations can easily edit OT protocol trust lists with EdgeOne to enable interactive interoperability between key production assets and conduct an in-depth analysis of L2-L7 networks by management group.
Virtual Patching
Virtual patching, also known as vulnerability shielding, is a security measure designed to prevent threats from exploiting known vulnerabilities to launch attacks. The purpose of virtual patching is to prevent and intercept vulnerability attacks via network-layer policies and rules. This technology is mainly deployed on TXOne Edge appliances, eliminating the need for offline patch installation on all assets and giving security teams more time to assess vulnerabilities, thereby reducing unplanned downtime and business disruptions.
Holistic Visibility
TXOne SageOne plays a crucial role in enhancing the security posture of industrial and mission-critical environments by combining knowledge of protocols, network behavior, and physical asset characteristics. They contribute to the overall resilience and reliability of cyber-physical systems, ensuring secure and efficient interaction between the digital and physical realms.
Simplifying Compliance for Food and Beverage Companies
At TXOne, we understand the unique cybersecurity challenges facing the food industry, especially with the increasing automation of the food supply chain. Recognizing the need for specialized security solutions, we are committed to providing comprehensive cybersecurity measures that not only meet regulatory requirements but also adhere to best practices and standards.
Regulations & Legislation
- NIS 2.0: NIS 2.0 is the updated EU Network and Information Systems Directive aimed at enhancing cybersecurity across the EU. It expands the scope to include important sectors such as food, chemical products, processing / manufacturing industries, and waste management, introducing stricter risk management and reporting requirements to improve overall cybersecurity resilience.
- FDA cGMP (Current Good Manufacturing Practice): The FDA’s cGMP regulations ensure consistent quality and safety in the production of food, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices. They also emphasize safeguarding data accuracy, integrity, and confidentiality, particularly in areas like production automation, quality management, and compliance, to prevent unauthorized data tampering or disclosure, such as those outlined in the FDA’s 21 CFR Part 11.
- FSMA (Food Safety Modernization Act): FSMA, enacted by the FDA in 2011, aims to prevent food contamination and protect public health. It requires food producers to implement risk-based preventive controls, conduct regular monitoring and verification, and promptly address food safety issues, ensuring the safety of the food supply from production to consumption.
Recommended Practices & Standards
- IEC 62443: IEC 62443 is an international standard for industrial automation and control systems security, focusing on network segmentation, secure communication, and robust access controls to safeguard industrial environments from cyberattacks.
- ISO 27001: ISO 27001 is an international standard for information security management systems (ISMS), designed to help organizations protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of their information assets. For the food manufacturing industry, ISO 27001 is particularly important because it helps companies safeguard sensitive information related to food production, such as formulas, supply chain data, quality control records, and compliance documents.
- NIST CSF v2.0 (Cybersecurity Framework v2.0): The NIST CSF provides a comprehensive framework for managing cyber risks, encompassing six core functions: Governance, Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover. It is designed to enhance organizational resilience against cybersecurity threats.
- CISA’s Cybersecurity Performance Goals (CPGs): CISA CPGs are voluntary, high-impact cybersecurity practices developed through extensive consultation. They aim to reduce risks to critical infrastructure and the public, focusing on essential actions for small- and medium-sized organizations to prioritize their cybersecurity investments.
Why Food and Beverage Companies Trust TXOne Networks
Several globally renowned food and beverage companies, along with their supply chains, rely on TXOne’s solutions. We help our clients build OT Zero Trust architectures, ensuring operational safety, availability, and integrity while significantly enhancing the resilience of critical assets. Here’s why our customers trust us:
1. Industry Influence
TXOne has a significant presence in the advanced manufacturing industry, impacting all production stages from upstream to downstream. For example, TXOne was recognized as a Verified Innovator for IT/OT Network Protection Platforms by Westland Advisory and made the CRN shortlist for The 10 Coolest IoT Security Companies in the 2024 Internet of Things 50.
2. Recognized Excellence
The company’s advanced cybersecurity platform has garnered over ten major awards, validating its effective use of the OT Zero Trust methodology for cyber-physical systems.
3. Broad Adoption
TXOne’s solutions are used by over 4,200 customers globally, including 350 large enterprises; this showcases its widespread acceptance and effectiveness.
“We wanted to move away from the old solution to the new one because the old solution was unsuitable for the size of our team. It was too complicated, no longer manageable and the configuration was too extensive.”Read the story
Dirk Peter
Head of OT in the Network and Automation Department, Krombacher
Make Your Next Move
Our Cyber-Physical Systems security solutions are meticulously designed to safeguard your critical manufacturing equipment and industrial production networks. Get in touch with our experts to find out why TXOne Networks is the right choice to secure your operational technology.
