Enhance Semiconductor Manufacturing Cybersecurity Through NIST’s CSF 2.0 Community Profile

What you'll learn:

Overview of NIST CSF 2.0 and its application to semiconductor manufacturing.
Measuring cybersecurity readiness: What are the NIST CSF tiers?
How to prioritize and apply cybersecurity recommendations: Introducing criticality tables.
Approaches to real-world application and implementation of CSF functions.

The prevalence of legacy operational technology (OT), highly interconnected global supply chains, and highly valued intellectual property (IP) have made semiconductor factory environments more frequent targets for sophisticated cyberthreats. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) 2.0—with the introduction of the Semiconductor Manufacturing Community Profile—offers an industry-specific way to identify and mitigate these threats.

This article discusses how original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and device-manufacturer (DM) fabs can use NIST CSF 2.0 in their cybersecurity initiatives, with special consideration to criticality analysis, legacy-system security, supply-chain weaknesses, and tactics for real-world implementation. NIST CSF 2.0 and its Semiconductor Manufacturing Community Profile provide companies across the market with a valuable tool for protecting fab uptime, product yield, IP security, and international competitiveness.

Overview of NIST CSF 2.0 and Its Application to Semiconductor Manufacturing

NIST's CSF 2.0 includes a governance function and applies its core principles in industry-specific configurations in the form of community profiles to meet sector-specific needs.

In applying guidance to semiconductor operational technology (OT) environments, the task of assigning priority and criticality to systems isn’t simply a matter of technical importance. It’s a critical strategic function that impacts safety, business continuity, and cybersecurity posture.

OT directly controls physical processes—machinery, robots, environmental controls, and safety systems. A failure in an OT asset can result in far-reaching consequences such as plant shutdowns, product contamination, physical harm, or regulatory penalties.

NIST CSF 2.0 is built around six core functions:

Identify: Inventory and classify fab tools, legacy systems, IP, and third-party integrations.
Protect: Implement access control, endpoint protection, and USB lockdown without impacting yield.
Detect: Monitor fab network behavior and detect anomalies in OT protocols.
Respond: Coordinate between fab operations and cybersecurity teams for rapid containment.
Recover: Restore tool configurations and recipe data with minimal impact to production.
Govern: Embed cyber risk governance into SEMI E187/E188 compliance and insurance readiness.

The NIST CSF 2.0 Semiconductor Manufacturing Profile goes on to deliver a voluntary, risk-based approach for managing cybersecurity activities and reducing cyber risk across the overall semiconductor manufacturing process. The profile is a supplement to current cybersecurity standards, regulations, and industry guidelines that are already being used by the semiconductor manufacturing industry.

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Measuring Cybersecurity Readiness: What Are the NIST CSF Tiers?

The NIST CSF 2.0 Semiconductor Manufacturing Community Profile adopts the NIST CSF’s “Maturity Tiers” to help semiconductor manufacturers assess and improve their cybersecurity programs. Describing characteristics of an organization’s risk-management practices, these tiers provide a benchmark for evaluating how well cybersecurity risk is managed across operational and business units.

The Semiconductor Manufacturing Community Profile adapts the generic CSF tiers, with context tailored to the semiconductor industry, especially considering legacy OT, supply-chain complexity, and uptime criticality.

The tiers range from Tier 1 (Partial) to 4 (Adaptive) and cover three core dimensions (Table 1):

Risk Management Process
Integrated Risk Management Program
External Participation

Table 1

The tiers are especially meaningful in semiconductor manufacturing because of certain key characteristics in the sector:

Legacy OT systems: Fabs often operate 24/7 with decades-old tools. Maturity assessments help identify where compensating controls or segmentation must be improved.
Global supply chain: The reliance on complex global supply chains introduces unique external risks that must be managed collaboratively with suppliers (Tier 3+).
Yield and uptime sensitivity: Higher-tier organizations can better align cybersecurity with yield protection, uptime, and IP safeguarding—critical success metrics in semiconductor production.

How to Prioritize and Apply Cybersecurity Recommendations: Introducing Criticality Tables

Semiconductor producers can use the criticality tables to make cybersecurity investment decisions by ranking system and threat based on safety impact, yield impact, uptime impact, and IP protection impact (Table 2).

Table 2

Assigning criticality in OT is an important step for a semiconductor manufacturer in planning its OT protection strategy and must account for both digital and physical consequences.

Moreover, multi-stakeholder involvement is key to success in the process for multiple reasons:

Bridging the cyber-physical divide: IT and security operations center (SOC) teams bring expertise in digital risk: malware, unauthorized access, and data exfiltration. OT teams understand process interdependencies, system tolerances, and physical safety. Collaborating ensures that cyber-physical systems are evaluated holistically.
Enhancing threat modeling and incident response: SOC analysts need context to distinguish a benign anomaly from a critical incident. OT personnel help prioritize which assets require real-time alerting and those that can be monitored passively. This improves triage efficiency and incident containment.
Reducing operational friction: When stakeholders agree on what’s critical, security policies and change-control processes are less likely to disrupt operations. This prevents unintended consequences such as downtime caused by IT-initiated patches or scans on high-priority OT systems.

Approaches to Real-World Application and Implementation of CSF Functions

NIST CSF 2.0 Core Function: IDENTIFY

Objective: Gain visibility and context into OT assets, processes, and associated risks.

Asset Inventories: Deploy passive asset discovery tools to map out all OT endpoints without disrupting production. These tools can recognize semiconductor-specific protocols and gather contextual metadata including OS type, firmware version, IP address, and MAC address.
Risk-Based Asset Mapping: Correlate asset data to build heatmaps of cyber risk. Include metadata such as OS version, patch status, vendor support lifecycle (e.g., unsupported Windows XP/2000 systems), geographic or fab-specific location, and known CVEs (e.g., from NIST NVD or CISA KEV catalog). This allows for prioritization based on exploitability and operational criticality. Other more specific approaches should be utilized, such as the Vendor Security Assurance Requirements (VSAR), or a context-specific approach to CVEs by applying CVE information within the specific environment or context where it's relevant.
Dependency Mapping & System Categorization: Create asset-dependency trees based on tool-integration layers (e.g., SECS/GEM, OPC-UA servers, and legacy PLC interfaces). Use this information to group assets by criticality, aligning with SEMI E187 Risk Scoring and NIST CSF 2.0 criticality tables.

NIST CSF 2.0 Core Function: PROTECT

Objective: Implement safeguards to ensure the continued delivery of critical OT services.

OT-Specific Endpoint Protection: Deploy security agents to legacy Windows endpoints, including tool controllers and engineering stations. Alternate approaches can be utilized by leveraging an Agentless AV scanner via USB device. A network-based malware inspection device can also be effective.
USB and Application Whitelisting: Block unauthorized portable media and executable file changes using device control solutions. Set default-deny policies to only allow approved binaries and USB vendors—critical for tools that still use USB drives for recipe upload/download or vendor diagnostics.
Secure Remote Vendor Access: Implement strong remote-access governance with multi-factor authentication, jump servers, and continuous VPN monitoring. Monitor vendor sessions in real-time and log interactions for audit trails. Restrict access to specific Layer 2 or 3 network locations and deploy time-based access controls.
Zone-Based Isolation and OT Firewalls: Segment production systems into functional zones and deploy protocol-aware firewalls to filter non-essential communications (e.g., Modbus or DNP3 filtering at cell or tool bay level).

NIST CSF 2.0 Core Function: DETECT

Objective: Identify anomalies and cybersecurity events in a timely manner.

OT Network Intrusion Detection: Utilize OT-specific IDS/IPS solutions that understand industrial protocols. Use tools that can flag unexpected traffic patterns, unauthorized scanning, abnormal network traffic, or abnormal command payloads in protocols like SECS/GEM, Modbus, or PROFINET.
Behavioral Baselining: Establish a known-good profile of communication between tools, MES systems, and control stations. Use machine learning or rule-based thresholds to identify deviations (e.g., excessive recipe downloads or unexpected tool polling).
Log Aggregation and Correlation: Ingest OT event logs into SIEM systems and correlate them with IT events. Flag alerts could be tied to MITRE ATT&CK for ICS tactics such as “Lateral Tool Transfer” or “Man-in-the-Middle.”

NIST CSF 2.0 Core Function: RESPOND

Objective: Contain the impact of incidents and ensure continuity of operations.

OT-Inclusive Incident Response Playbooks: Develop and train for incident response (IR) scenarios specific to fab operations (e.g., compromised tool controllers, recipe tampering, or ransomware targeting legacy HMI/SCADA nodes). Map response actions to NIST CSF 2.0 "RESPOND" subcategories and SEMI E188 roles/responsibilities.
Network Access Control (NAC) + Micro-segmentation: Use software-defined networking or endpoint-based NAC to isolate infected devices at Layer 2 or 3. Deploy micro-segmentation policies to ensure one compromised tool doesn't affect others on the same VLAN.
Digital Forensics for OT: If possible, enable forensic capture of events and memory snapshots from engineering stations or legacy OS endpoints using forensically sound tools to support RCA and threat actor attribution.

NIST CSF 2.0 Core Function: RECOVER

Objective: Restore capabilities or services impaired due to cybersecurity incidents.

Golden Images and Offline Backups: Maintain hardened, offline golden images of tool control software, recipe databases, and MES integrations. Validate backups regularly and store them in physically isolated environments with integrity verification checks.
Ransomware Recovery Drills: Conduct scheduled drills that simulate tool lockouts or engineering station infections. Ensure that production can resume using recovery SOPs and images can be reimaged without dependency on internet-based services.
System Hardening During Recovery: As part of the rebuild, apply baseline hardening (disable SMBv1, enable host-based firewalling, and close unneeded ports) following ISA/IEC 62443-3-3 SR 7.1-7.6 and NIST CSF 2.0 PR.IP guidelines.

NIST CSF 2.0 Core Function: GOVERN

Objective: Establish and maintain oversight and continuous improvement in cybersecurity posture.

Define Cyber Maturity with CSF Tiers: Evaluate cybersecurity capabilities using NIST CSF Tiers and target maturity levels based on fab criticality, tool complexity, and supply-chain risk.
Optimize Cyber Insurance: Embed documented control implementations (endpoint protection, recovery procedures, segmentation, and incident response plans) into audit packages submitted to cyber insurers. Demonstrating compliance with frameworks like NIST CSF, ISA/IEC 62443, and SEMI E187/E188 can reduce premiums and improve coverage eligibility.

Conclusion

Semiconductor factories work in a very special threat environment where data loss and downtime are expensive from both business and reputational points of view. NIST CSF 2.0, with its Semiconductor Community Profile and priority based on criticality, enables manufacturers to optimize their cybersecurity investment in accordance with actual operational risk. With layered defense, visibility, and governance, factories can construct an enduring cyber plan that secures yield, safety, and IP.

What’s the next step to get started? It’s crucial to strategically partner with vendors that truly know OT and have the technologies, exercises, and skill sets to succeed and scale efforts.