Cimation Blog The Benefits of Application Whitelisting for Industrial Environments

In recent years, advances in technology have allowed companies throughout the energy industry to significantly enhance the automation, monitoring, and control of their operations. This digital shift was marked by the introduction of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) into process control environments, where connected devices revolutionized the way operators and enterprise personnel interact with and analyze Industrial Control Systems (ICS). These increased capabilities of IIoT-enabled devices and their further integration with the enterprise network have provided operators with a wide range of benefits across the entire value chain. However, they have also come with an important trade-off that shouldn't be taken lightly: increased exposure to vulnerabilities.In light of this digital shift, endpoint security for ICS, whether in the form of firewalls, host intrusion prevention systems (HIPS), patch management, or any of the myriad of technologies designed to keep endpoints secure, has become increasingly important. Application whitelisting (AWL) is another, specific form of endpoint security that's proved to be a safe and reliable option for a wide range of production environments. As both the volume and variety of malware threats continue to increase, the advantages it can provide over other endpoint security measures are becoming more and more evident.