Organisations use an average of seven security tools for their critical infrastructure, but 68 percent lack real-time visibility into all devices. Unplanned downtime costs an average of $288,563 per hour.
Palo Alto Networks examined how well factories, power grids, hospitals and transport systems are protected. The State of Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Report surveyed 1,600 IT decision-makers at organisations with more than 1,000 employees, in eleven countries and five sectors. These environments run on operational technology, networks that emerged long before visibility into every device was a design goal. Now 5G and AI applications are being added.
Tool sprawl
Organisations combine an average of seven separate security systems. For 56 percent of them, this sprawl also means higher costs. On average, 23 percent of devices are unmanaged or hard to monitor, and for 52 percent this is due to outdated OT equipment.
Steven De Pauw, System Engineering Manager at Palo Alto Networks, says cybersecurity in critical infrastructure is at a dangerous point. According to him, 42 percent of respondents see systems that can no longer be patched as the biggest risk.
Nearly six in ten experienced a serious breach in the past year. At 49 percent, incidents lead to unplanned downtime. Response time is improving, though: a year ago, 56 percent needed days or weeks to resolve an incident, now that figure is 35 percent.
Frontier AI
Of the organisations, 95 percent are concerned about attacks using the latest and most advanced AI models. At the same time, 91 percent expect AI-driven security solutions to play a role in defence. They themselves are not very far along yet: only 19 percent deployed AI in four or more operational domains.
The study was commissioned by Palo Alto Networks and carried out by Sapio Research. Of the respondents, 39 percent are from EMEA, 39 percent from Asia-Pacific and 22 percent from North America. 40 percent work in manufacturing, 20 percent in healthcare and life sciences, 16 percent each in energy and utilities and in transport, and 8 percent in government.