The biggest OT risk isn’t an unpatched PLC — it’s the “helpful” IT integration that quietly turns one compromised credential into plant-floor impact.

As factories, energy, and logistics connect OT to IT for visibility and optimization, the real expansion isn’t endpoints. It’s trust.

Common trust links that attackers chain:
– Shared identity (AD/AAD) extended into OT
– Remote access tooling that reaches “just one” HMI
– Shared monitoring/management platforms with high privileges
– File shares, jump servers, historians, and middleware bridging zones
– Vendor accounts and service credentials that never expire

A practical model for leaders:
1) Map every trust crossing between IT and OT (identity, access paths, data flows, admin tools)
2) Minimize trust: least privilege, separate identities, time-bound access, remove standing vendor creds
3) Segment for failure: assume IT gets owned; design OT so it degrades safely, not catastrophically
4) Monitor the crossings: auth events, remote sessions, tool-to-tool API calls, historian traffic
5) Practice response: OT-aware playbooks, isolation steps, and decision rights before an incident

Convergence delivers value. But every integration is also a contract of trust. Make those contracts explicit, measurable, and breakable.

#ITOT #OTSecurity #CyberSecurity #IndustrialCybersecurity #ZeroTrust #IdentitySecurity #NetworkSegmentation #IncidentResponse