Safeguarding Your Industry 4.0 Journey with Equinix and Honeywell

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Industry 4.0, is breaking new ground, interconnecting cyber and physical systems for greater data sharing, and offering a springboard for businesses looking for greater agility, business visibility and productivity. While this convergence has enhanced connectivity and interoperability, it has also opened up new cyberattack vulnerabilities and altered risk models.

In a recent study by Ponemon Institute, the inability to control security, safety and privacy is seen as a barrier to operational technology (OT) or information technology (IT) convergence by 47% of respondents.¹ As cyberattacks on OT environments gain pace across all sectors, 56% of IT and OT security professionals at industrial enterprises have reported an increase in cybersecurity threats since the start of the pandemic, while 70% have also seen cyber criminals employing new tactics in the same timeframe.²

This has increased the awareness and need for greater cyber resilience among businesses. To help combat this, I recently had the privilege of co-hosting an Ortus Club Roundtable on cyber resilience with Kelvin Chin, Regional Vice President of Industrial Cybersecurity, Honeywell JPAC. We spoke with OT and IT leaders in Singapore about heightened cybersecurity risks and how enterprises can be prepared for future cyberattacks.

Reducing Cyber Risks: Invest or Wait and See?
With many enterprise technology leaders faced with budgetary pressures, one topic of conversation at the event was how deciding whether to prioritize investments in cybersecurity often seems to be a chicken vs egg situation. Should priority be placed on being reactive or proactive when it comes to cyber disruption? Perhaps, the real question is: if no cyber events have occurred, does it mean there is no threat?