5 Steps to OT Cybersecurity Compliance Success

Cyber attackers have industrial organizations squarely in their sights. Manufacturing and energy are now among the top three most targeted verticals, up from eighth and ninth, respectively, just two years ago. Ransomware has wreaked havoc on industries as diverse as fuel distribution pipelines, meatpacking, beer brewing, and paper packaging. Governments, insurers, customers, and boards of directors are responding to these attacks with greater emphasis and urgency on the security of operating technology, OT, the systems that control industrial processes.

In the spring and summer of 2021, the U.S. government issued several new regulatory initiatives — from the President’s Executive Order on supply chain security, to the TSA’s issuance of new regulatory requirements for the energy pipeline sector, to new rail and aerospace standards similar to the pipelines edict.

The future of OT cyber security will be marked both by escalating threats as well as by increasingly stringent regulatory scrutiny. This paper won’t argue the pros or cons of such approaches. Its intent is to lay out likely future scenarios and examine how industrial organizations can prepare now to avoid being overwhelmed by the looming deluge of OT security compliance requirements.