By Gregory Hale
In an effort to increase its presence in the industrial sector, operational technology security provider Claroty named Yaniv Vardi as its new chief executive.
Vardi, the third chief executive to head up the five-year-old company, has big plans to move the firm forward.
“For many companies it is hard to see the top of the mountain,” Vardi said. “Here the sky is very clear. You can clearly see the top of the mountain. I am sure there will be challenges climbing to the top but you can see nobody else is at the top and the top is very high. The market has tremendous needs for OT security and Industrial IoT, and remote access for the industrial space.”
Vardi has immediate and long-term goals for the company.
“Our immediate goals are to make sure we listen to customers and partners and create a scalable machine here to support our customers and partners,” he said. Also, we need to make sure we have a go to market plan that is solid and covers a big story here to be the market leader and make the necessary changes in the organization to support the growth. The long term vision is to become the market leader by providing a one-stop shop end-to-end platform for the industrial space on their OT needs. In the industrial space, the C-level is looking for a trusted advisor, a trusted solution provider that can provide them a one-stop shop for their needs so they don’t have to go to different solution providers, and that includes the OT side. With the visibility, asset management, monitoring, threat detection, vulnerability management and also remote access and the Industrial IoT, including devices that are connected and the sensors and everything that is generating data inside, all of that is in one single solution.”
One-Stop Shop
He added the technology for that one-stop shop will end up provided by Claroty, and the company’s providers will offer services.
“Partners will have to deliver the services, but we will provide the technology,” he said. “When it comes to the technology, we are there. We have the IT solution, we have the secure remote access, we have the threat detection, but we need to approach the market and make sure they see a complete package.”
He also sees IT-OT convergence as being part of that package moving forward.
“The market was focusing on IT and it now understands the need for OT security and the convergence to bridge the gap between IT and OT,” Vardi said. “It goes hand-in-hand to offer a complete solution.”
CISOs realized they knew what to do on the IT side, but not sure what strategy to follow on the OT side. There is more need for more companies to be educated on the OT side than before.
— Yaniv Vardi
No matter what, enterprise IT was always a part of the security conversation at companies, but Vardi said now boards of directors are also asking for more plans to secure OT.
In terms of securing the manufacturing enterprise, the pandemic has added a new wrinkle to the security equation.
Digital Transformation
“COVID-19 created a few changes and trends. The digital transformation started before COVID-19, but now it is even stronger,” Vardi said. “Companies will digitalize their business because they want to create more value from what they had. Whatever they can do to improve their operational efficiency anyway they can. We provide data around visibility and asset management. Because employees are working from home much more than before. Secure remote access is a must. More cloud-based solutions will be requested, but for that it will take time.”
In terms of remote access, most likely there will be a hybrid version of what is happening now where workers will come into the office and also work from home. With that in mind, there will be additional security issues moving forward.
Vardi said it will depend on the vertical industries and the maturity levels in different countries. In Germany and the U.S., he said, they are very industrial so it should not be too much of an issue going to the hybrid model of remote access. In other countries not as industrial, they may not be as flexible.
No matter what though, what the pandemic has shown is companies seem to be focusing more on cybersecurity these days.
Security Focus
“There are a couple of trends happening,” Vardi said. “One is there are more attacks. That is a fact. Because of more attacks, people and leaders are more exposed to the risk. Two, the board of directors are becoming more educated and knowledgeable. You see the C-level is going to ask more questions on the strategy to protect the company and the business. You see it because the attacks are coming and because the board is worried about liability. Until recently, the IT was the core focus of cybersecurity, but because of different government attacks and different attacks that were done through the industrial control systems in the production line on the operations side, the OT was more exposed. CISOs realized they knew what to do on the IT side, but not sure what strategy to follow on the OT side. There is more need for more companies to be educated on the OT side than before.
Vardi sees at least one major issue facing the manufacturing industry moving forward.
“Industrial IoT is getting significantly bigger,” he said. “I think today there are 10 billion devices connected globally. In the U.S., 60-65 percent of the industrial space is connected one way or another through devices and sensors to the a IIoT user, and that creates a challenge. I don’t think companies are educated enough to know that there is a big challenge around that. They can cover IT completely, but they leave (the OT) side open. They are exposed. So, the IT-OT convergence is critical for businesses to understand. The mature businesses understand, but the small to medium businesses are behind.”
For quite a few companies it is hard to see the top of the security mountain, but as Vardi said there will be challenges, but hopefully everyone will see clearly and end up in a secure environment.