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Exposure Management & Security Monitoring Platforms

Executive Summary

As Operational Technology (OT), Industrial Control Systems (ICS), and enterprise environments become increasingly interconnected, organizations require continuous visibility into assets, vulnerabilities, threats, and operational risk.

Exposure Management and Security Monitoring platforms help organizations identify unmanaged assets, prioritize remediation activities, improve threat detection, and accelerate incident response. These capabilities support both cybersecurity operations and operational resilience programs.

EPRI guidance continues to emphasize asset visibility, communications awareness, architecture understanding, and continuous monitoring as foundational elements of cybersecurity programs within utility environments.

Why Exposure Management Matters

Objective	Business Value
Visibility	Understand what assets exist and where risk is located.
Prioritization	Focus remediation efforts on the highest-risk assets and vulnerabilities.
Threat Detection	Improve detection of suspicious or malicious activity.
Operations	Reduce response time and improve situational awareness.

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Platform Overview

Organizations commonly deploy a combination of asset visibility, threat detection, exposure management, threat intelligence, and vulnerability management platforms. While capabilities overlap, platforms often have different strengths depending on operational requirements and cybersecurity objectives.

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Dragos

File:Dragos Platform Overview.png

Example OT Visibility and Threat Monitoring Platform

Overview

Dragos is an OT-focused cybersecurity platform designed specifically for industrial and critical infrastructure environments. The platform emphasizes asset visibility, industrial threat detection, incident response, and operational risk awareness.

Key Capabilities

• Comprehensive OT asset discovery and inventory
• Industrial protocol awareness
• Behavioral and anomaly-based threat detection
• Visibility into PLCs, HMIs, DCS, SCADA systems, and IEDs
• Threat hunting and incident response support
• OT vulnerability and exposure management

Strengths

Area	Benefit
OT Visibility	Deep visibility into industrial assets, protocols, and communications.
Threat Detection	Behavioral analytics designed specifically for OT environments.
Investigations	Strong support for threat hunting and industrial incident response.
Integrations	Integrates with SIEM platforms such as Splunk and Microsoft Sentinel.

Typical Use Cases

• Substation monitoring
• Generation facility monitoring
• Threat hunting
• OT asset inventory modernization
• Industrial incident response

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Trellix

File:Trellix Dashboard.png

Example Exposure Management Platform

Overview

Trellix combines security operations, threat intelligence, exposure management, endpoint visibility, and investigation workflows to provide centralized cyber risk monitoring across enterprise environments.

Organizations commonly leverage Trellix for centralized monitoring, exposure management, threat intelligence, and vulnerability prioritization.

Key Capabilities

• Automated asset discovery
• Exposure and vulnerability management
• Integrated threat intelligence
• Security investigations and incident response workflows
• Centralized management using ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO)
• Security monitoring and analytics

Strengths

Area	Benefit
Threat Intelligence	Visibility into emerging threats and adversary activity.
Asset Discovery	Identifies unmanaged and previously unknown assets.
Operations	Supports centralized security operations workflows.
Automation	Enables automated security investigation and response activities.

Limitations

Consideration	Impact
Licensing Dependencies	Advanced functionality may require additional licensing or platform integrations.
OT Visibility	OT-specific context may not be as deep as solutions purpose-built for industrial environments.
Legacy Systems	Endpoint-based visibility may be limited in highly segmented or unsupported OT networks.

Typical Use Cases

• Enterprise exposure management
• Vulnerability prioritization
• Threat intelligence operations
• SOC monitoring
• Investigation and response workflows

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Platform Comparison

Exposure Management & Monitoring Comparison

Capability	Dragos	Trellix
OT Asset Visibility	High	Moderate
Industrial Protocol Awareness	High	Limited
Threat Intelligence	High	High
Threat Hunting	High	High
Vulnerability Management	Moderate	High
Security Operations Integration	High	High
Enterprise Asset Visibility	Moderate	High
OT Incident Response	High	Moderate

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Utility Considerations

Utilities operating OT and critical infrastructure environments often require specialized visibility into industrial protocols, communications pathways, and operational dependencies.

EPRI research continues to emphasize understanding communications flows, architecture dependencies, external connectivity, and operational context as essential cybersecurity capabilities.

In practice:

• OT-focused platforms such as Dragos provide deeper industrial visibility and threat detection.
• Enterprise-focused platforms such as Trellix provide broader exposure management and centralized security operations capabilities.
• Many organizations deploy both OT-specific and enterprise security monitoring tools to achieve comprehensive visibility.

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Recommended Practices

Recommended Approach

Focus Area	Recommendation
Visibility	Establish comprehensive inventories across both IT and OT environments.
Risk Prioritization	Focus remediation efforts on critical assets and exploitable vulnerabilities.
Monitoring	Continuously monitor for abnormal behavior, threats, and emerging exposures.
Integration	Share asset inventory and exposure data with SIEM and SOC platforms.
Governance	Align exposure management activities with enterprise risk management programs.

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Source Links

Industry References

• EPRI Defensible Network Architectures: Criteria for Secure OT Deployment in Power Systems (3002027430)
• EPRI Security Design Architecture Review: Solar Inverters (3002029720)
• NIST Cybersecurity Framework
• CISA Cybersecurity Performance Goals

Platform References

• Dragos Platform
• Dragos Resources
• Trellix Security Platform
• Trellix ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO)

Related Topics

• OT Asset Visibility
• Exposure Management
• Vulnerability Management
• Threat Intelligence
• Operational Technology (OT) Security
• Security Operations Centers (SOC)
• Industrial Control Systems (ICS)
• Threat Hunting
• OT Monitoring