Category: IIoT & Cloud Solutions

Embracing Cloud-Based Historian and Cybersecurity Best Practices

Organizations from a variety of industries are adopting cloud-based solutions in today’s changing technology environment to streamline their operations and gain a competitive advantage. Historian systems that are cloud-based are essential for gathering, storing, and processing real-time data. To protect sensitive information, it is essential to have strong cybersecurity safeguards in place. This article discusses the importance of cloud-based historian systems and offers crucial cybersecurity best practices that businesses should implement.

Understanding Cloud-Based Historian Systems

Cloud-based historian systems revolutionize data management and utilization. They enable organizations to collect, store, and analyze large volumes of historical and real-time data, empowering them to derive actionable insights, enhance operational efficiency, and make informed decisions. Leveraging cloud infrastructure allows businesses to scale their historian systems as needed while decreasing maintenance costs.

The Importance of Cybersecurity in Cloud-Based Historian Systems

As organizations increasingly rely on cloud-based historian systems to store and process critical data, robust cybersecurity becomes critical. Here are key reasons why cybersecurity is crucial:

  • – Data Protection: Cloud-based historian systems handle sensitive data, including proprietary information, customer details, and operational insights. Strong cybersecurity measures ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of this data, guarding it against unauthorized access.
  • – Compliance Requirements: Numerous industries, such as healthcare, finance, and energy, have strict regulations governing data security. Implementing cybersecurity best practices within cloud-based historian systems helps organizations comply with these regulations, avoiding potential legal and financial consequences.
  • – Mitigating Cyber Threats: Cybercriminals continuously develop techniques to exploit vulnerabilities in cloud-based systems. Implementing robust cybersecurity measures assists organizations in proactively identifying and mitigating potential threats, protecting their data assets from unauthorized access, data breaches, and other cyberattacks.

 

Cybersecurity Best Practices for Cloud-Based Historian Systems

The following best practices should be adopted by enterprises to strengthen the security of their cloud-based historian systems:

  • – Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Implementing MFA adds an extra layer of security by requiring users to provide multiple forms of authentication, such as passwords, biometrics, or tokens. This helps prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data.
  • – Encryption: Employ encryption techniques to secure data both during transit and at rest. By using industry-standard encryption algorithms, organizations can protect data as it moves between the cloud-based historian system and user devices.
  • – Regular Updates and Patches: Stay vigilant about applying software updates and patches to address vulnerabilities promptly. Regularly monitoring and updating the software stack of the cloud-based historian system helps prevent potential security loopholes.
  • – Access Controls and User Permissions: Implement granular access controls and user permissions to restrict data access to authorized personnel only. Adhering to the principle of least privilege minimizes potential exposure and reduces the impact of security incidents.
  • – Security Monitoring and Incident Response: Deploy robust monitoring and logging mechanisms to promptly detect and respond to security incidents. Utilizing intrusion detection systems (IDS) and security information and event management (SIEM) tools enables proactive threat detection and swift incident response.

 

Cloud-based historian systems provide organizations with the means to unlock the full potential of their data, driving innovation and operational efficiency. However, it is critical to prioritize data security by adopting proactive cybersecurity measures. By embracing best practices such as multi-factor authentication, encryption, regular updates, access controls, and security monitoring, organizations can strengthen the security of their cloud-based historian systems, safeguarding their sensitive data. Businesses can utilize the advantages of cloud-based technologies with confidence if they adopt a proactive approach to cybersecurity.

Considerations for Running Critical Applications Successfully and Securely in the Cloud

To modernize processes, enable quick innovation, and spur growth, almost all businesses have adopted the cloud. The following factors should be taken into account when choosing a solution to control your risks when running your critical applications in the cloud.

1. Can the solutions be applied across all clouds and other cloud-native security solutions?

The wide choice of security service offerings from the cloud service providers (CSP), which are quick and simple to deploy, are frequently used by businesses to secure their cloud resources. To reduce integration friction and increase value, businesses should think about solutions that also interface with the cloud-native security services and technologies they have already purchased from the CSP.

Businesses should search for solutions that provide the most extensive integration amongst the main clouds. This gives them the ability to manage their workloads on a single platform with constant security and user-experience across all of their clouds. With only one platform to study and develop expertise on, outcomes are more predictable, and cloud security operations are more effective.

2. Can the solutions give you a prioritized list of the most important security concerns to pay attention to?

It is important to not only have a broad understanding of all potential new and emerging risks but also to have insight into the most important ones that need to be mitigated as well as to accept controllable risks.

The best solutions integrate with other security tools and services in order to correlate and normalize security information produced in real time by various security technologies across cloud environments, taking into account security posture, vulnerability, permissions, and threat signals to produce a normalized risk analysis.

3. Can the solutions address the threats and simplify security operations?

Solutions that use integrations with other security solutions and services should be simple to activate, cloud-agnostic, and not require expertise in advanced security technologies when it comes to simplifying security.

To reduce security coverage gaps across all major cloud environments, solutions that enable uniform workflows are crucial. These solutions free security teams from having to learn the nuances of each cloud platform and its corresponding security service.

4. Can the solutions be integrated into a mesh platform for cybersecurity?

Organizations are faced with more complexity and decreased visibility as more applications and workloads are deployed in the cloud, leading to blind spots when managing both on-premises and cloud deployments. A cybersecurity mesh platform that integrates with cloud-native integrations is essential to solving this problem. An automated, comprehensive, and integrated cybersecurity platform can assist businesses in integrating enterprise security with cloud deployments. Organizations can gain from centralized administration and visibility, uniform regulations, automatic response, and operations over the length of their deployment thanks to this potent combination. In the end, this contributes to closing the cybersecurity skills and resource gaps that many organizations have by enabling businesses to respond to threats faster and more effectively by utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning.

How Can CB Pacific Help You

CB Pacific is here to help on your Industrial Internet journey by transforming your business into a digital industrial company. The Industrial Internet simplifies connectivity from sensors, HMI/SCADA systems, Historians, databases, and other sources to the Cloud to take advantage of robust tools and analytics.  Let CB Pacific help you get started with a variety of solutions for Edge Connectivity, Monitoring & Optimization, Analytics, Asset Performance Management, Field Service, and much more. Click here to learn more.