Fortinet’s Phil Quade: Addressing IT-Operational Tech Integration Key to Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity

Phil Quade, chief information security officer at Fortinet, told Federal News Radio’s Ask the CIO program that aired Wednesday federal agency leaders seeking to cyber-secure operational technology used to power critical infrastructure should address the rising integration of OT with information technology driven by the prevalence of internet-connected devices.

Quade said the government should work with the private sector to address issues related to IT-OT integration by sharing cyber threat information and establishing a national program that would counter distributed denial-of-service attacks.

A national counter-DDOS program would involve companies that could help with bandwidth issues and “segment off the assets or even the attacker,” he noted.

“And lastly, it would probably involve the U.S. government. The U.S. Cyber Command might be a great place to do a mitigation upstream in foreign cyber space,” Quade added.