Yokogawa Electric Corporation has announced the release of the OpreX IT/OT Security Operations Center (IT/OT SOC) service. Particularly, this new addition to the OpreX Safety and Security family leverages on a centrally managed service based on people, processes, and technology.

Targeted primarily at industrial enterprises, this service by Yokogawa developed will improve the security of IT and OT networks. This is because it can detect, analyze, and enable a quick and effective response to cybersecurity incidents from anywhere in the world.

Monitoring in real-time for cybersecurity threats to networks and IT/OT infrastructure offers comprehensive protection. Furthermore, this mitigates both operational and business downtime and eases the task of IT/OT asset management.

Development Background

New cybersecurity threats emerge every day. In fact, technologies evolve, so do the associated cyber threats and vulnerabilities that can cause severe damage to an organization’s data. Security operations centers (SOCs) are becoming more critical to an effective cybersecurity strategy as they proactively focus on undiscovered cyber security threats and vulnerabilities.

Traditionally, while management of the IT and OT domains are separate, the convergence of IT and OT networks, driven by digital transformation (DX), has made them increasingly interdependent. For these reasons, organizations can choose to establish a converged IT and OT SOC that acts as one team. Here, it will use a shared data lake, tooling, resources, and processes.

In 2019, Yokogawa began developing an internal security monitoring service for the IT infrastructure of Yokogawa Group companies globally. This monitors personal computers, DNS/AD servers, intrusion detection systems, and factory systems and processing up to 600 million events a day by using cyber threat intelligence (CTI) and machine learning (ML) programs.

Yokogawa utilizes the vast experience it has gained internally and complemented by its best-in-class approach to OT security for its customers. For that reason, it was able to develop a cloud-based IT/OT SOC service. Thus, providing its customers with an integrated, consistent, and holistic approach to security for the IT and OT domains.

Features

The Oprex IT/OT SOC is a security monitoring service that uses next-generation Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) which is fast, scalable, and unified. The service uses various CTI and ML tools to collect event logs from customers’ IT/OT devices to detect cyber-attacks, unauthorized accesses. In addition, it also counters infiltration by malware. It provides a wide range of analysis, consulting, and managed services with next-generation SOC architecture.

Powered by ML and AI, the IT/OT SOC is an advanced intelligent SIEM service that detects abnormal activities and sophisticated attacks. The ML- and AI-driven SOC can devise a threat response by implementing the right playbook, reducing the investigation time by providing analysts the precise action point, and minimizing the mean time to detect and respond.

It also enables reduction of human errors and acceleration of workflow using advanced automation and orchestration tools. This is because IT/OT SOC employs a security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) platform of technologies that coordinate, execute, and automate tasks between various people and tools, minimizing human errors and thereby speeding up the overall security response.

It also covers 24-hour protection through CTI. Particularly, the collected logs and event information in real-time by multiple CTI tools provide around-the-clock, year-round protection through the detection of suspicious communications and malware.

Moreover, it provides ultimate deployment flexibility and support. IT/OT SOC can go with existing IT/OT security services, network security infrastructure, and incident management systems. Customers can also integrate it with their SOCs or Yokogawa’s existing SOC.