Protecting Connected Building Infrastructure with Identity-Based Security
Facility Management Systems Security
Reducing Complexity
Simplified security without complex VPNs or fragile firewall rules.
Strengthening Security
Identity-based Zero Trust access for building and operational systems.
Challenge: Facility Management Systems Security
Top cybersecurity challenges for facilities include rampant ransomware targeting operational technology (OT), insecure IoT devices, and phishing/social engineering aimed at staff. Other key challenges are lack of visibility into building systems, legacy equipment, and third-party vendor access. These issues, coupled with a skills gap, make it difficult to protect building management systems (BMS).
Top Cybersecurity Challenges for Facilities
- Weak IoT/Building System Security: Devices like smart sensors, cameras, and building controls (BMS) often lack robust built-in security, providing easy entry points for hackers.
- Lack of Visibility: Facility managers often do not have a comprehensive inventory of all connected devices, making it hard to secure, monitor, and update them.
- Inadequate Network Segmentation: Many facilities do not properly separate critical operating networks from the corporate IT network, allowing breaches to move laterally.
- Skills Gap in OT Security: Difficulty finding professionals who understand both facility systems (like HVAC/security) and modern cybersecurity practices.
Solution: Enabling Secure Access at Scale
Cybersecurity Operations Infrastructure (CSOI) enables organizations to secure facility infrastructure using identity-based Zero Trust architecture. Instead of relying on network location or perimeter defenses, CSOI establishes secure encrypted communication between authorized systems using cryptographic identities.
Every device, system, and user must authenticate and be explicitly authorized before communication occurs. This approach allows facility operators to tightly control how systems communicate while maintaining operational flexibility across buildings, service providers, and centralized operational platforms. By enforcing identity-based communication policies, CSOI significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized access and lateral movement across inter-connected facility systems.
Ease of Deployment
Facility environments cannot tolerate extended downtime or disruptive infrastructure changes. CSOI is designed to deploy over the top of existing networks without requiring rip-and-replace upgrades or major infrastructure redesigns.
Built on a Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) and Identity-Defined Networking (IDN) architecture, CSOI integrates networking and security into a unified platform that is topology, protocol, and hypervisor agnostic. Deployments can be staged across buildings, operations centers, data centers, and cloud platforms without interrupting facility operations.
Because policies follow cryptographic identity rather than physical network location, organizations can securely support remote teams and third-party service providers while maintaining strong access control and consistent security across facility infrastructure.
Cybersecurity Operations Infrastructure
CSOI is built to manage complex facility infrastructure networks spanning on-premises environments, distributed buildings, centralized operations centers, public cloud platforms, private infrastructure, and hybrid architectures. It creates a common secure networking architecture capable of protecting both modern and legacy systems across the facility operations landscape.
With CSOI’s Zero Trust network architecture, organizations can significantly reduce their attack surface while improving the speed of threat mitigation, access revocation, and system quarantine when suspicious activity occurs.
- Easily add and remove network access
- No need to rip and replace existing infrastructure
- Cost savings from simplifying network management
- Protect legacy operational systems without requiring internal firewall support
- Microsegmentation to prevent east-west movement
- Policy-based control over what external resources protected systems can communicate with
