Transcript
I'm Matt Bolek, Principal Technical Marketing Engineer at Fortinet, and today I'm joined by Meera Ramanathan, Director of Global Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility and Chair of our CSR Committee here at Fortinet. Together, we'll explore how cybersecurity and sustainability go hand in hand in connected buildings, from securing critical systems to enabling innovation that supports long-term resilience. Let's dive in. Good morning, Meera. Good morning, Matt, and thank you for welcoming me here. I appreciate it. Thank you. Now, tell us about your role as the Director of Global Sustainability and CSR here at Fortinet, and what's Fortinet's vision for building a secure and sustainable digital world? As Matt just mentioned, my name is Meera Ramanathan. I am the Director of Sustainability and CSR. We had started this group four years ago, and basically, we are in an era where digitization touches every part of our lives. So cybersecurity is not just IT anymore. It's not just something for an IT, MIS, anything. It's a cornerstone of our sustainable society. So our group, our team, which is also a board committee, Fortinet is not just a cybersecurity leader, but is also very deeply committed to sustainability. So what we want to do is secure people, devices, and data everywhere while building a sustainable digital world. And we take a very holistic approach. We integrate sustainability into everything, into our solutions, our operations, and our partnerships. And we want to drive impact, and that's our goal. Awesome. Let's drill down into that a little bit more. So it sounds like cybersecurity and sustainability really go hand in hand. How does that apply, and how does that affect smart buildings when we're looking at that critical infrastructure there? In essence, smart buildings are working to minimize impact to the environment because we monitor everything, right, from energy to even how our blinds go up and down if the sun sets or rises. So the concept of smart buildings are essentially that they're larger digital devices. Cybersecurity is important to those digital devices because we want to ensure that no bad actor, cyber attack occurs in these smart buildings such that it could make whatever kind of process that's going on in the smart building to be disrupted and essentially affecting all the employees that work there or live there, so to speak. Yeah. And I can imagine that, you know, Fortinet being, you know, one of the biggest cybersecurity companies in the world, we see risks from everywhere. So how does that, you know, what types of risks are you seeing specific to connected buildings and smart buildings? So what's interesting with connected buildings and smart buildings is that in sum, I can tell you, I can attest that there are over 10,000 data points within one single building. So the risks that we have because of this include data privacy and security because smart buildings check in employee data when you walk in the building, for instance, or touch something sometimes. It manages energy consumption. Like, you know, we don't want people to know how much energy we use, etc. So that's one, data privacy and security. The second one is most building management systems, most of them, which are, you can, I can name a few companies, but let's just say they're the ones that are the heart of the building or the heart of the smart building itself. What it does is that it runs on IoT. Now, when there's a cyber attack at any one point in that, because it's so interconnected, so interconnected, if there's one cyber attack, facilities or any type of management group will have to unravel multiple threads in order to get to that particular source of where the attack is. So data privacy and security, BMS, which is running on IoT. The third one, which is quite interesting, and it is something that we'll have to all work on, is that there's no protocol. There's nothing that says that there's a protocol, like a cybersecurity protocol for a smart building. There's cybersecurity protocols for everything else, but it's just that this is the way the world is moving. Everything is being digitized from your energy to how you badge into the elevator, for instance. Everything is being digitized. So it's important to create those protocols, too, and this is just a call for action on that one, too. It's fascinating because it's kind of like the Wild West where you get all of these smart systems that have evolved independently and they just all are coming together in smart or connected buildings. Correct. So you have all of these systems that traditionally weren't connected to a network. No. And now we're finding things like HVAC, fire safety, elevators, entry doors, digital signs, everything, connected to the building network, supporting all of these sustainability initiatives. So I guess, you know, as buildings become more green, you know, how are these unique connections impacting cybersecurity as a whole within the sustainable property and the enterprise? So again, you know, some of these things, like you mentioned earlier, were never connected. So there's different aspects to it, right? So one, yes, because they're now interconnected, as I mentioned earlier, we need a much better management of that because anywhere the attack can happen and it can cause a lot of problems. The second thing is, which is very important for cybersecurity professionals to step into a smart building concept or create these protocols, is because the people that generally work in a smart building, like facilities management, you've got, you know, third party, you've got existing facilities, you've got multiple groups that work within running that building appropriately, they may not know how to stop these attacks. So there's an education component there, too, that I think cybersecurity professionals and cybersecurity in general should jump in on because you can't run a building properly unless you measure what you manage, right? The beauty of smart buildings is that we can measure and we can manage it appropriately. But if someone comes in and attacks that measurement component, no one can, no one understands. In the past, like to your point about the elevator, and I'll make it brief to the point about the elevator, if somebody gets trapped in an elevator, you know, somebody will call in a facilities technician or an elevator technician, we can work it and fix it. Now, if that, if someone's trapped in an elevator and that is linked to a larger system, you have to go into the larger system and understand how to get this person out of the elevator. So it's, there's a lot of safety components, you know, EHS, sustainability, energy, people management, you know, everything is all interconnected now. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like, as you said, it sounds like an awesome opportunity for education and discovery and understanding how all of these things work. And just to wrap up, I wanted to ask you one last question. So, you know, I've heard Fortinet published a sustainability report talking about the priorities and challenges for the sustainability activities. Yes. What guidance would you recommend for building and sustainability leaders to keep top of mind when they're planning these smart building projects that maybe are new to them? I can just say cybersecurity and sustainability work hand in hand. Sustainability is about minimizing impact to the environment. Cybersecurity as a layer on top of it assists you to do that. So cybersecurity is integral to sustainability. Sustainability is integral to proper concept of a wonderful society. So you can't have one without the other. But the earlier, the earlier when you start in any form of sustainable project or specifically relating to a smart building, bring in your cybersecurity professionals, bring in people that understand what types of attacks can occur, how they can occur, and how you can minimize your impact, not just to your people in your building, but to the environment as a whole. Well, I mean, that's fantastic advice. And I think I could sit here and talk to you about this for a few more hours, but unfortunately, we're out of time. So I want to thank you. Thank you very much, Mira, for sharing your insights and the fantastic role that sustainability plays in shaping the future of smart buildings along with cybersecurity associated with that. It's really clear, at least to me, is that, you know, as more systems become connected, building resilience really depends on aligning sustainability goals with security and cybersecurity practices. To learn more about Fortinet's commitment to sustainability and operational technology, visit fortinet.com. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for more expert conversations on innovation and resilience. Thank you for having me.
