Fundamentally there are three types of mindsets in the technology driven industry sectors. Do Nothing Fear of change and risk aversion are deeply rooted in human psychology. Change brings uncertainty. This maximizes value with efficient use of limited resources and discretionary budgets – a thrifty strategy. However, preserving the status-quo limits growth and results in missed opportunities. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a risky mindset because in a competitive environment it is an “innovate or evaporate” decision. Do It Yourself If you want to go fast, walk alone....

Digital Transformation The threats from emerging dual-use technologies always appear farther in the rear-view mirror before becoming closer than they appear in the side-view mirror. Technologies such as quantum computing, post quantum cryptography, and the convergence of information (IT) and operational technologies (OT) are prime examples of this reality. The paradigm shift from a process-oriented to a digitally-transformed focus requires a unified doctrine for integrated governance from device manufacturers and application developers to the end users and operators. Fear of Security Implications...

If you’re responsible for securing connected devices in the field – whether industrial sensors, controllers, or gateways – you’ve probably felt this tension: How do you strengthen security and meet new regulations like the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) without halting operations, rewriting firmware, or managing a mess of cryptographic tools? Most organizations are already stretched keeping legacy systems online, let alone upgrading them for compliance, trust, and resilience. This blog breaks down what the CRA really demands of device manufacturers, OEMs, and operators – and how to respond with...

Symmera, a pioneering technology company for XIoT and AI/ML enablement, has joined the  Margo alliance as a contributor to help define an open standards based solution for IoT/OT  connected devices and Enterprise digitalization. Srinivas Kumar, CEO, will be part of the  technical working group, and Shreya Uchil, VP of product management, will be part of the  marketing working group.  Across various industry segments, the adoption of an open-standards-based platform for  enterprise digitalization helps application developers, original equipment manufacturers,  and end-users leverage simplified...

Keyfactor is thrilled to announce a new partnership with Symmera, a leader in enterprise digitalization. Together, Symmera and Keyfactor provide holistic digital trust for connected devices and edge solutions based on open standards. The IT and OT markets continue to become more intelligent and utilize more AI and machine learning. Manufacturers and end users now face a host of challenges in balancing security, scalability, availability, and interoperability while trying to maintain simplicity of implementation. While security by design is essential, cybersecurity extends across the entire product...

As we welcome and celebrate the beginning of a new year, and the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, does a new era for cyber resilience appear elusive? What will change in the next quarter of this century? Episodes of payment card fraud, compromised credentials, corporate data breaches, phishing emails, SMS spam, and ransomware targeting institutions and consumers will inevitably, and yet again, become headline news in the weeks and months ahead. The professional hackers and cybercrime syndicates have made significant advancements with ingenuity to break security countermeasures with...

Over the past decade, the cybersecurity industry has tried to solve an operational technology (OT) problem on devices with an information technology (IT) solution on the network. The wiring closet with IT-OT convergence is complex plumbing. The weaknesses and vulnerabilities on OT devices must be addressed head-on by the suppliers with device and application security by design. The attack surface on autonomous and distributed cyber physical systems behooves a risk model based assessment of exposures and countermeasures. The emerging standards for protection of critical infrastructures and cyber...

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act, approved by European Union member states, lawmakers, and the European Commission, went into effect on August 1, 2024. This undoubtedly will have a significant and enduring effect on how data is classified and labelled for acceptance or rejection by AI based machine learning (ML) and deep-learning (DL) applications and services. Today these implementations implicitly trust the accuracy and authenticity of massive training datasets (e.g., metrics, text, image, audio, video) to fine-tune billions of model parameters. Programmatically differentiating deep-fake...

The difference between information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) must be viewed from the perspective of visibility, control, and lifecycle orchestration. While these viewpoints may appear to be trivial the inherent dichotomy between IT and OT is profound. It is not what has “not changed” but what “has changed” that has caused the IT-OT divergence problem to begin with. IT-OT systems have coexisted for many decades across industry segments, however, what has evolved are the requirements for visibility and control of cyber-enabled devices driven by threat...