Page 48 - RC21 EDGE Summer Issue
P. 48
Editorial
CYBERSECURITY PERSPECTIVES:
IT AND OT IN COMMERCIAL AND CORPORATE REAL ESTATE
CHARLES MEYERS
Executive Director
Real Estate Cyber Consortium
“EAST IS EAST, AND WEST IS WEST, and never the twain shall meet...” Those words written by Rudyard Kipling over a hundred years ago could be applied today when we think of the differences between the teams that support Information Technology (IT) and the teams that support buildings and facilities aka Operational Technology (OT).
While the phrase is interpreted to mean that differing
sides will never see eye-to-eye, I would like to think it infers that while ideologies may differ, those of differing perspec- tives should continuously try to better understand each other. This is especially important when they share a com- mon goal: to keep an organization’s real estate operations running efficiently and securely.
I recently moderated two webinars for Realcomm on Cybersecurity for Commercial and Corporate Real Estate.
The webinars focused on cybersecurity as it relates to both Information Technology (IT) and Operational Tech- nology (OT). We explored the areas of teamwork, culture, and the underlying process changes required to help these two areas come together to address their collective challenge: real estate cybersecurity. The building oper- ations and IT worlds differ because IT’s purpose differs from OT. The purpose of IT is to manage information, the bits and bytes that flow through our networks and com- puters; whereas the purpose of OT is to control and man- age our physical environment, raising/lowering tempera- tures, and turning on/turning off everything from lights to secure access to our buildings. Now as OT encompasses the world of IoT and especially IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things), the challenge to secure the OT world has taken on greater importance.
In discussing the cultural differences, Jesse Carrillo (SVP & CIO, Hines Properties) shared a great story of how playing softball with the facilities and properties teams helped build camaraderie and understanding between
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