National Critical Functions (NCF) are hurrying into digital adoption like all industry verticals. A paradigm shift uprising with multiple obstacles to securely move into the immense benefits Industry 4.0 promises. From better workforce safety to new business opportunities, the intelligent connectivity of the physical and the digital presents a digital gold rush, a new market expected to reach trillions of USD.
Every business, large or small, is invited to start the race, but the finishers rate is still being determined, and those unable to cross the finish line can become extinct. The stage has been set, and the actors' auditions have started. But when it comes to NCF, this rat race is unacceptable.
When services that provide societies with such vital functionalities that their disruption, corruption, or dysfunction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof, require other paths. Security is one of the basic requirements for critical infrastructure to take advantage of Industry 4.0.
It's important to note that CISA is a relatively new organization. It was established as an Agency in 2018. Therefore, there's a lot of work to be done, and if we add the eruption of IoT, providing a secure environment becomes even more challenging. The recent pandemic triggered the necessity to adopt digital connectivity to an industry that was never built with the internet as we know it as an important actor.
This digital connectivity has opened up risks and vulnerabilities that are very tough to tackle, and mitigation processes are long and complex. This recipe is difficult to swallow for a workforce with enough responsibilities to add the security mitigations recommended by CISA.
As an example, a brief resume of the security mitigations presented by CISA to alert the Water and Wastewater Systems in the U.S. due to the ongoing cyber threats triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine:
Adding all these extra chores (if you still need to do so, you can read the whole mitigation list here) to the daily routines of a workforce that provides critical services isn't an optimal solution.
Here we arrive at the importance of partnerships. Reading CISA's strategic plan for 2023-2025, there's a recurring focus on the need to work toward partnerships. In fact, in the third of their four major goals, this is specifically indicated:
What we can learn from the above is that cybersecurity has become a top priority but is still a work in progress. We are still at the learning stage, where adjustments are the norm, to counter the ever-growing sophistication of cybercriminals' attacks.
To understand the severity of cyberattacks, let's look at recent incidents and the economic and potentially life-threatening costs. In 2021, cybercriminals were able to access various critical infrastructure plants and services, to name a few:
Understanding the potential harm these incidents can have on societies and knowing the problem will continue to arise. Taking action and looking into other means to handle constant attempts to bring down National Critical Functions digitally is paramount.
Internet of Everything Corporation (IoE Corp) provides a solution to help cyber secure national infrastructure. IoE EDEN is a private online Edge Cluster developed around a sustainable computing core. An Online Private Garden that keeps track of all data movements and verifies that data received comes from another trusted node on a blockchain.
In addition, an OP Garden backbone device only communicates over one TCP/IP port. All other access to the device has been eliminated at an OS level; this provides extreme security, as not only does it remove attack vectors. It creates a second layer of malware detection, as the malware will try to contact its Command and Control center on ports that are not opened but are still being monitored.
Implementing IoE Eden to critical infrastructure offers full security measures that mitigate and alleviate NCF workers as autonomous automation becomes a reality. With IoE Eden's Online Private Gardens:
To access the immense advantages IoE Eden provides to critical infrastructure's digital transformation, you can now apply to IoE Corp's Planet Partner Program. Incorporate into your IT consulting services and products a solution ready to help you and your customers enter Industry 4.0 at the forefront of this fourth industrial revolution.
Eden is a State of the art, robust P2P based, distributed, and decentralized compute and storage platform with internal consensus and decision capabilities. Eden makes autonomous automation a reality.
In addition, EDEN is eco-friendly. By running on passively cooled IoT devices and with power-aware code, it saves megatons of CO2 equivalents. If you want to learn more about this groundbreaking technology, apply to our Planet Partner Program.
