HU

Protecting Production & Packaging

Food & Beverage

From dosing pumps to packaging conveyors, our OT controls meet GFSI, FDA and HACCP requirements without downtime.

Discover Our Approach

Food & Beverage

“The food and beverage industry has become a lucrative target for threat actors. Both are critical components of economies and, for many nations, they now represent a national security threat if compromised.”

Food & Beverage Cyber Security Challenges

Like other manufacturing sectors, the prospect of operational downtime is a scenario Food & Beverage manufacturers want to avoid at all costs—each hour of downtime incurs significant losses in deferred or spoiled product. Preventing downtime while maintaining OT data integrity is a major challenge.

Closer IT/OT convergence has improved connectivity and process efficiency, but also broadened the attack surface. Without robust controls and defensible architectures, attacks originating in Enterprise IT can cascade into OT, risking consumer safety and production continuity.

Situational Awareness

Perception (What’s happening?)

  • An expanding attack surface from IT/OT convergence, connectivity and organizational complexity—exacerbated by a lack of OT risk management—increases exposure.
  • Heightened regulatory scrutiny of critical national resource assets forces F&B manufacturers to reassess cyber strategies.

Comprehension (Why does it matter?)

  • A threat actor using a remote-access Trojan to manipulate DCS or SCADA systems could alter processing temperatures, causing widespread foodborne illness, or trigger unsafe machine behavior endangering workers.
  • Cyber intruders can exfiltrate recipes and process IP, selling it on the dark web or to competitors, causing reputational and financial damage.

Food & Beverage Risk Management

For organizations with little or no OT risk program, we recommend a holistic two-phase approach:

Phase 1 – Risk Identification & Prioritization
Identify critical OT functions (e.g. dosing pumps, packaging conveyors) and assess potential cyber impacts. Leverage custodians and engineers to map realistic attack paths—covering architecture, access, third-party scope, supply chain and physical security.

Phase 2 – OT Cybersecurity Framework (OT-CSF)
Establish a formal OT-CSF with policies, procedures and playbooks aligned to:

  • ISA/IEC 62443
  • NIST CSF
  • NERC-CIP
  • ISO/IEC 27001/27002/27019

At minimum, include:

  • Formal governance model (RACI roles)
  • End-to-end operating model
  • Regulatory compliance mapping
  • Asset inventory
  • Network architecture documentation
  • Incident response plan
  • Workforce training & awareness
  • Procedural controls (access management, change control, backups)
  • Basic performance monitoring & reporting

As OT maturity grows, supplement with:

  • Internal assurance & self-assessments
  • External audits
  • Third-party/supplier cyber clauses
  • Network & threat monitoring solutions
  • Asset monitoring & vulnerability detection
  • Privileged Access Management (PAM)

Finally, ensure budgets, in-house skills, supplier support and governance are in place to sustain the OT program—reducing vulnerabilities and building resilience.