gATO for Operational Technology Environments

The Organic Industrial Base (OIB) and other Operational Technology (OT) modernization initiatives across the USAF, DLA, Army, and other services have changed the way Industrial Networks need to operate. Today legacy operational systems and critical infrastructure are increasingly connected and automated and need to interact with modern technologies like AI, AR/VR, and wireless and these legacy systems weren’t developed with cybersecurity controls in mind. This convergence of legacy and modern systems in hybrid operational environments, the wide range of mission impact, and the gaps for understanding these connected operational systems require a new blueprint for continually assessing and managing the risk in these highly integrated environments and an opportunity to incorporate this risk calculus into real-time identity and access management strategies for operational systems and critical infrastructure. Key Drivers for gATO in Operational Environments1.             Enhanced Guidance of System Categorization for ATOs and other accreditations2.             Standards-based OT Security Controls Selection and Overlays3.             Generative AI-guided artifact generation  4.             Automated Continuous Assessment to Reduce Recertification Time The ATO process for the Department of Defense is often the most costly and time-consuming blocker to delivering new systems to the mission and even worse for less understand operational systems and critical infrastructure. While the DoD and NIST has recently invested to address OT specific security and risk concerns, the ATO process is largely manual and can take upwards of 18+ months to get even a small operational enclave of 4-5 systems accredited.  Today the DoD lacks the ability to ensure critical infrastructure meets DoD ATO requirements for Operational Technology/Systems resulting inIncreased vulnerability to cyber attacksLimited technology adoption and advancement in OT domains Slowdown in rapid, trustworthy capability delivery to the warfighter. The goal of Corsha’s gATO initiative is to utilize generative artificial intelligence (AI) and model-based system engineering (MBSE) to accelerate and standardize ATO package creation and approval for OT systems and enclaves, and, in turn, improve the security and speed of technology adoption for critical hybrid OT to IT convergence.