Ransomware attempts against industrial operators jumped 46% in a single quarter. New threat groups are specifically targeting operational technology environments, and OT-specific malware is being sold on dark web forums with multi-protocol support and anti-forensics capabilities. The uncomfortable truth is that most OT and ICS environments were engineered for reliability and uptime, not cybersecurity. Legacy systems run outdated operating systems that cannot be patched, use protocols that lack encryption or authentication, and were never intended to be connected to enterprise IT networks or the internet.

That isolation is gone. Digital transformation, IT/OT convergence, and the need for real-time data from the plant floor have connected these systems to corporate networks and cloud platforms. Dual IT/OT attacks now average $4.56 million per incident, and plant managers routinely bypass patching windows to meet production targets. Addressing this requires coordination across network visibility, segmentation, threat detection, and OT-specific vulnerability and asset management platforms to reduce cyber risk without introducing operational disruption or safety hazards. Security teams responsible for these environments need approaches built for the constraints of industrial operations, not IT playbooks adapted after the fact.

Topics include:

• Building comprehensive asset visibility in converged IT/OT environments
• Deploying segmentation and threat detection tuned for OT protocols and operational baselines
• Addressing legacy ICS vulnerabilities through compensating controls and risk-based prioritization

Learn how industrial organizations are building cybersecurity programs that protect operational technology without compromising the uptime and safety these systems were designed to deliver.