Israel Railways is launching a new innovative cyber-monitoring center (SOC) unifying the OT/IT networks. This was revealed at the transportation panel from Cybertech’s exclusive seminar, in collaboration with Fortinet.
“Israel Railways is considered critical infrastructure. Furthermore, it’s a transportation infrastructure that demands security measures, as we wouldn’t want to witness a train accident. Three years ago, when the cyber unit was formed the OT and the IT environments were separated, creating a challenge in unifying them, whereas today, we see the two environments as one. This is an organizational target, to create a Synchronization between the two environments. These days we are building an SOC for the train, where we wish to combine both environments” noted Yael Mor, Head of Cyber Unit at Israel Railways, CISO, at the Cybertech seminar.
Further, added Mor: “With projects already being structured, another challenge is making sure that the vendors we work with understand the importance of cyber-security. Recently, we had purchased train-cars from Siemens for close to a billion euros, and the contract stated that it doesn’t include cyber-security. Nonetheless, we discovered that the passenger’s WIFI is connected to the train’s operating infrastructure. Siemens didn’t see this as an issue. Over a 3 week process, we were able together with Siemens to integrate security mechanisms into the cars without disrupting the project’s deadline. Another challenge for the train is emergencies, as we are part of the country’s emergency plan.
Currently, we are beginning to construct cyber aspects for the emergency plan. Just last year we conducted an exercise on the subject. On 15/9/2019 we are establishing one of the world’s first OT/IT monitoring centers.”
