This article is by Awen Founder & CEO Daniel Lewis.
CISOs are fatigued, annoyed and irritated by marketing and sales approaches used by cyber security companies. They’re genuinely tired of it… even more so in the industrial sector, where there are a lot of bold claims made by some industrial cyber security software companies which can stretch the truth a little too much.
We know the truth because we’ve been investigating industrial cyber security before we even considered starting a commercial company.
The truth is that all CISOs in Industrial sectors know that Operational Technology (OT) / Industrial Control Systems (ICS) / SCADA / Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are full of potential cyber security vulnerabilities, especially the closer they get to an IT network. The truth is that no single cyber security product is going to solve it all.
The truth is that this is going to take time to become more secure, and it’s going to take software and techniques built from the ground-up, and not software repurposed from IT security.
The truth is that this requires an approach which is not forced upon engineers by people trained in IT or general cyber security, but an approach which is wholeheartedly applicable to engineers and the specific industrial sectors.
The truth is that there is a lot of legacy equipment, and that legacy equipment isn’t going anywhere for a while, despite the desire to work towards Industry 4.0 - “if it works, and it’s enabling the operation of the service, then why change it?”
The truth is that these industrial companies quite often don’t have the budget to make significant changes which would support some of these industrial cyber security software products, particularly within critical infrastructure sectors which have a non-profit ethos. The truth is that these cyber security software products are sometimes looking too far into the future.
Every business, even Awen, has to do marketing and sales in order to survive. But we’ve decided to take a different approach, one of radical truth. This Radical Approach to Marketing & Sales (RAMS) means that we might tell you that we can’t do something yet, and this will be the truth, and our hope is that you will understand this and we, together, use this truth as a basis for further mutually beneficial collaboration. For example, coupled with our agile and empathetic approach to software development, we would certainly take a new feature request on board and even develop it rapidly specifically for you. We will also tell you the truth about the other products on the market, what they cannot do well and what they do well. We want to work with you on industrial cyber security, and not force you into a specific way of working. As a business; Awen is flexible — and as a product; Dot has the flexibility to be deployed based on the way that you work - not a set of requirements dictated by us.
If you’re in an industrial company and are looking for cyber solutions, then contact us today- we’re not going to hard-sell you, or stretch the truth.