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Cisco
The Importance of Cyber Security in the Rail Industry
This article first appeared in the Railway-News Magazine Issue 3 2023.
The railway industry is increasingly embracing new systems and technologies to enhance operational efficiency, safety and connectivity.
As operators move on from their legacy systems, there is an ever-increasing number of connections and complexity to deal with from a security standpoint.
Expanded connectivity means increased chances for cyber criminals to disrupt critical infrastructure and global economies. Threats have gone from simple hacks to sophisticated attacks for financial gain, disruption and espionage. The world’s critical infrastructure – power grids, healthcare systems, food industries and transportation – can and have been disrupted by cyberattacks.
At Cisco, we’re listening and working alongside rail operators, governments and our networks to map out a digital future with trust at its foundation.
Enterprise Architecture Approach
An enterprise architecture approach and zero trust framework is recommended to think more holistically about how components in a network can work together to drive security and operational resilience. This enterprise approach, versus one that is more siloed, can deliver enterprise segmentation, security and compliance across the ecosystem.
Collecting and analysing telemetry at the lowest granular level provides the comprehensive visibility needed to enable rail operators to see what’s going on on their network – in real time. This level of visibility enhances the capacity to troubleshoot whether the network is undergoing network performance issues or facing an adversarial attack. Visibility and analytics also result in the ability to orchestrate a dynamic response to either – anywhere across the enterprise.
Cisco Connected Rail
The Cisco Validated Design for Connected Rail provides an end-to-end architectural framework and a resilient network foundation designed to improve the safety, efficiency, performance and service levels of rail operations. This architecture includes network segmentation to securely deliver multiple services (vital and nonvital) over a common infrastructure – lowering risk and reducing cost.
