In a analysis conducted by Deloitte, the prevalence of cyber threats has exacerbated with the increased adoption of digital technologies in the manufacturing industry. Manufacturers of industrial machinery need to share proprietary information with supply chain partners while ensuring its privacy, making it critical to effectively segregate data to meet both compliance and business requirements. The difficulty in balancing the need to share with complying with regulations can prevent organizations from exploiting the global market for resources and employees.Â
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Safeguarding Intellectual Property
Industrial Machinery involves intricate designs, proprietary technology, and innovative manufacturing processes, all of which are valuable intellectual assets. High capital investment is required to manufacture, service, maintain, and optimize the product, underscoring protection of intellectual property (IP) throughout its lifecycle for maintaining competitiveness and safeguarding investments. Additionally, companies must ensure the secure protection of their own, partners’, and customers’ data when sharing intellectual property with stakeholders. Â
Supply Chain Vulnerabilities
Industrial Machinery relies heavily on global supply chains, sourcing components from diverse suppliers worldwide. However, in this multi-tiered landscape, suppliers vary in technological sophistication. Small partners often lack the necessary infrastructure to defend against cyber threats, risking the compromise of critical components. Enforcing uniform access standards across the supply chain proves challenging, increasing the risk of breaches. Collaboration among stakeholders also raises concerns, as it can lead to data breaches and intellectual property theft when sensitive information is shared with competitors.Â
Strengthen Data Governance
Industrial machinery companies, operating globally and serving sectors like government and military, must navigate diverse data protection regulations. Customer data, including sensitive business information and financial data, is a prime target for cybercrimes. Compliance with regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and contractual obligations such as non-disclosure agreements and Privacy Impact Assessments (PIA) is crucial, emphasizing the need to strengthen data governance to prevent customer data compromise.Â
Insider Risk
According to a report by CISA, the manufacturing sector has the highest frequency of insider attacks among critical infrastructure sectors. The sector’s high specialization creates risks of privileged individuals exploiting their knowledge for malicious purposes to cause substantial harm to a company’s competitiveness or inadvertently compromising machinery safety due to human error. Outsourcing and offshoring amplify insider risks by expanding access to sensitive data, increasing the likelihood of data leaks and breaches due to diverse backgrounds and security standard differences.Â
A Secure Approach for Sharing Proprietary Information
To safeguard intellectual property and strengthen data governance while addressing supply chain vulnerabilities and insider threats, industrial machinery manufactures need to implement a data-centric security approach that includes the following elements:Â Â
Distributed Policy Engine
A distributed policy engine allows for the implementation of consistent security controls and compliance measures across all endpoints, ensuring that critical data and operations remain protected regardless of the repository it resides in and can only be accessed by authorized users. Companies operating across borders or working with global multi-tiered suppliers can adapt more effectively to local regulations and operational requirements while maintaining a unified approach to security and safeguarding valuable assets. Â
Data-Centric Security Controls
Data-centric security controls strengthen data governance, preventing wrongful disclosures. Encrypting data with Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology ensures secure creation, viewing, modification, and distribution of sensitive enterprise business-critical information during collaboration, safeguarding intellectual property. Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) policies restrict access to critical data via masking and segregation, preserving data integrity. Format-Preserving Encryption (FPE) obfuscates data at rest in applications, preventing unauthorized access.Â
Automate and Prevent
A dynamic policy engine evaluates policies in real-time, automating security control enforcement. By continuously monitoring real-time events, data access patterns, and consolidating data activity logs, the policy engine strengthens data governance. It ensures adherence to industry standards and regulatory requirements, safeguarding both sensitive information and operational integrity within the industrial machinery sector.Â
Centralized Audit and Reporting
By aggregating access logs into a report server, the policy platform can generate reports for analysis. This centralized approach allows companies to analyze data activities and gain comprehensive insight into monitoring any unauthorized sharing of data with sub-tier suppliers, addressing supply chain risks. It also streamlines auditing processes and simplifies compliance assessments, demonstrating adherence to regulatory requirements and enhancing overall data governance.Â
NextLabs Solution
CloudAz Unified Policy Platform
CloudAz centralizes administration of attribute-based security policy, incorporating Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC), and enforces it in real-time to implement fine-grained controls as required by Zero Trust principles. Whenever an access request is made, the CloudAz policy engine, Policy Controller, evaluates the authorization policies using attribute values obtained from attribute sources as defined in policies. This ensures that access and authorization are always granted with up-to-date information, automating policy enforcement, logging, and auditing.Â
SkyDRM Digital Rights Management
NextLabs’ SkyDRM secures Industrial Machinery’s IP stored in PLM or CAD applications, enabling global IP sharing from PLM applications while managing real-time access and usage. It ensures secure internal and external sharing of IP in CAD files, fostering collaboration. Additionally, NextLabs’ Data Loss Prevention (DLP) for SAP ERP safeguards sensitive data like financial data and customer lists, preventing leakage and unauthorized extraction, with real-time policy enforcement to enhance internal control and ensure compliance, such as SOX.Â
SkyDRM Digital Rights Management
NextLabs’ SkyDRM secures Industrial Machinery’s IP stored in PLM or CAD applications, enabling global IP sharing from PLM applications while managing real-time access and usage. It ensures secure internal and external sharing of IP in CAD files, fostering collaboration. Additionally, NextLabs’ Data Loss Prevention (DLP) for SAP ERP safeguards sensitive data like financial data and customer lists, preventing leakage and unauthorized extraction, with real-time policy enforcement to enhance internal control and ensure compliance, such as SOX.Â
Data Access Enforcer (DAE) for "Need-to-Know" Access
NextLabs’ DAE enforces “need-to-know” data access using data masking and segregation to control internal user access. Any data not authorized by the privileged user is masked, ensuring that access to confidential information is restricted. This ensures that employees can work effectively without compromising the security and integrity of sensitive information that are subjected to regulations like PIA. Data segregation categorizes and separates data based on sensitivity and access requirements, enforcing strict boundaries and allowing only authorized users to access relevant information relevant to their roles.Â
Data Access Enforcer (DAE) Format Preserving Encryption
With a heavy reliance on global supply chains and companies leveraging offshore entities or resources, it is vital to prevent wrongful disclosure by third parties. NextLabs’ DAE offers FPE capabilities that encrypts data without altering the data’s structure before granting access to third parties, ensuring that sensitive information remains protected even in the hands of external stakeholders. This also allows companies to watch for leaks, and if leaks happen, it signals data compromise. Data governance of critical data can be enhanced, preventing inadvertent disclosure.Â
CloudAz Report Server
CloudAz can simplify audit processes with centralized logging and reporting of all data access activity and authorized decisions, ensuring compliance with regulations such as GDPR, ITAR, and SOX. With a centralized audit repository to monitor and analyze user activity and data across applications and services, organizations can promptly detect risky actions and prevent policy violations. Additionally, CloudAz offers self-mitigation capabilities by identifying patterns and anomalies in data activities, optimizing reporting processes, and reducing data loss.Â
CloudAz Report Server
CloudAz can simplify audit processes with centralized logging and reporting of all data access activity and authorized decisions, ensuring compliance with regulations such as GDPR, ITAR, and SOX. With a centralized audit repository to monitor and analyze user activity and data across applications and services, organizations can promptly detect risky actions and prevent policy violations. Additionally, CloudAz offers self-mitigation capabilities by identifying patterns and anomalies in data activities, optimizing reporting processes, and reducing data loss.Â
