Rising cybersecurity threats and attacks are pushing industrial enterprises to view cybersecurity through a very different lens. OT cybersecurity is increasingly driving business objectives and innovation to safeguard operational uptime and enable greater operational flexibility. Beyond protecting continuous operations, OT security empowers critical infrastructure to pivot, innovate, and maintain resilience in dynamic industrial environments. In sectors such as manufacturing, energy, and healthcare, OT security serves to safeguard uptime and enable operational agility, innovation, and strategic flexibility.
A manageable OT security framework that facilitates consistent operations will afford stakeholders the trust they need to pursue aspirational projects in the digital space. Security as a cyberculture element, when included from an early project planning stage, can protect innovation but also meet the so-called needs of regulatory bodies, such as NERC CIP, NIS2, and ISA/IEC 62443, which in turn can enable early stages of potential advanced technology deployment using AI at the edge/at operational level.
The advantages of robust OT security are evident and far-reaching. For instance, chemical plants based on secure sensor networks can use predictive maintenance to actually avert expensive downtimes. Utilities leveraging smart grid analytics can make optimal energy distribution while keeping their critical control systems from being hacked. Automotive manufacturers bringing together IT and OT data can automate production lines and get real-time information on quality and throughput. In all of these cases, OT security works to safeguard and acts as the motive force for efficiency, resilience, and service based on data.
While cybersecurity investments have long been seen as a cost, more forward-thinking organizations are starting to see the value within those investments and how their cybersecurity initiatives drive organizational strategic goals to protect intellectual property (IP), secure supply chains, and provide a safe environment to foster innovation. By including cybersecurity at the outset of any solution, organizations can automate, support remote operations, and use predictive maintenance with their daily operational execution without worrying about operational disruptions.
In a world increasingly characterized by connectivity, data, and real-time operations, strong OT cybersecurity is now an essential part of the picture, providing a safety net for operational continuity and enabling transformational capabilities into the future. Such an approach continuously aligns security objectives to business drivers to ensure industrial innovation is safe, secure, and sustainable.
OT cybersecurity emerge as driver of uptime and flexibility
Industrial Cyber reached out to examine how forward-looking industrial organizations are repositioning OT cybersecurity as a business enabler that supports operational resilience, uptime, and flexibility rather than treating it as a cost center.
Saby Goswami, cybersecurity services commercial leader for Asia Pacific at Rockwell Automation, highlighted that the goal of an OT cybersecurity program is to establish an adaptive, resilient, business-enabled function – it’s not to prevent attacks. “There are two items to consider when positioning OT cybersecurity program as a business enabler: risk buy-down and overall resilience.”
“Given a threat landscape in which you are very likely to experience some level of cyber disruption in the next five years, a million-dollar investment to improve security posture today can help you recover your plant floor in two days instead of two weeks – that’s risk buy-down,” Goswami said. “Establishing that concept early will gain you favor with your CFO. When we then think about overall resilience, we are thinking about all the factors that impact business operations. Explaining how the investments you are making directly impact your business’s ability to procure, receive, produce, and ship product makes the proposition worthy of investment dollars.”
He added that “when establishing long-term strategy, investments must be focused on closing gaps in your basic security posture, but must also have an eye on the needs of your business. Explaining that you are implementing a new strategy to limit the operational impact of an incident from an entire plant to one production line is an understandable benefit.”
As equipment and devices become more connected, operational resilience is now tied to digital resilience, Ian Bramson, vice president for global industrial cybersecurity at Black & Veatch, told Industrial Cyber, adding that from automation to remote operations and digital transformation, industrial cybersecurity underpins the ability to operate safely.
He added that this includes the risk controls a company puts in place that allow it to outpace and outmaneuver its competitors in the modern world. “You wouldn’t drive a sports car without reliable brakes, tires, mirrors, or safety belts? It’s the same with harnessing the power of digital transformation.”
“Every company I speak with has some form of a ‘how can we be better?’ program, whether they call it ‘Factory of the Future,’ ‘Industry 4.0,’ or ‘AI in OT,’” Sean Tufts, field CTO at Claroty, told Industrial Cyber. “These initiatives aim to modernize legacy systems, and the first requirement has been cybersecurity. The OT environment has long been overlooked, and modernization simply cannot happen until it is secured.”
Tufts mentioned that cyber investments that start with strong asset visibility create value by improving OT context, enabling predictive maintenance, and boosting efficiency. “Security now drives operational resilience and flexibility. As platforms mature, uptime improves. Greater visibility means troubleshooting and prevention aren’t limited to onsite teams, reducing outages and strengthening resilience across operations.”
“Reframing the conversation to focus most on the loss-prevention and risk-reduction components that come with a higher degree of resilience and reliability,” Patrick Miller, president and CEO at Ampyx Cyber, told Industrial Cyber. “Many OT cybersecurity tools and practices have the dual benefit of increasing uptime and efficiency as well as reducing the security risks.”
Positioning OT cybersecurity to protect innovation and compliance
As digital transformation accelerates, the executives look into how OT cybersecurity can be aligned with core business KPIs such as production efficiency, regulatory readiness, and supply chain continuity without slowing innovation.
“Digital transformation and OT cybersecurity should be tied at the hip – one should not proceed without the other,” Goswami said. “Establishing a long-term OT cybersecurity strategy that identifies risk in business terms – downtime, revenue impacts, etc. – allows you to connect transformation efforts and cyber requirements that benefit the business while keeping changes secure.”
He added that cybersecurity leaders are great at looking across the enterprise and identifying risk. “Tying that ability into a team that is re-imagining how an enterprise leverages data is powerful.”
Bramson mentioned that OT cyber needs to operate at the speed of business. “It can’t slow down innovation. Rather, it needs to manage the risks that create obstacles for production efficiency and supply chain resilience. The lower the risk, the faster companies can confidently operate.”
“Most industrial systems built in the past decade support more modern data analytics requirements, but many still rely on legacy equipment never designed for connectivity,” Tufts said. “Companies hesitate to connect these systems without strong cybersecurity. This creates a dichotomy: data programs move quickly, while maturing a cybersecurity program can take years. That gap often delays the full impact of innovation.”
He added that successful programs today use OT data exported for off-site analysis. “As security matures, real-time initiatives will follow. This allows data analytics without sacrificing resilience or compliance. Efficiency programs have progressed nicely, and regulatory programs have advanced in quality and reporting. In contrast, supply chain improvements lag behind. ERP systems remain reactive and lack real-time insights, a key area for near-term improvement.”
Miller recognizes that advances in AI are allowing for digital twins and the ability to test many scenarios in complex, advanced models of real systems. “This will help us innovate faster with a higher degree of confidence. This should be balanced with a healthy dose of Cyber Informed Engineering to provide for physical fail-safes.”
OT cybersecurity investment emerges as source of business value
The executives explore how CISOs and OT security leaders are making the case that cybersecurity investments can create business value, enabling secure remote operations, predictive maintenance, and data-driven services.
“Tying OT cybersecurity to innovation and data-transformation efforts keeps leaders involved and gives them a voice,” Goswami said. “They can show how new cyber investments can improve visibility, enhance resilience and overall security posture, and still allow the business to glean needed information to transform at rates that once seemed impossible.”
Bramson noted that companies are turning to cyber risk quantification (CRQ) to better manage their cyber and operational risk. “However, CRQ isn’t just about cost avoidance; it’s about having the confidence to push forward with new innovations.”
“Some of the clearest business value from cybersecurity comes from simple use cases. Better asset inventory improves security and helps procurement teams make smarter buying decisions by cutting software license costs and unnecessary spend,” Tufts said. “Secure remote access is another area delivering measurable impact. Offshore drilling operations and cruise ships have saved millions by reducing helicopter trips and enabling remote troubleshooting.”
Ultimately, he highlighted that OT data only creates value if it changes technician behavior. “Enterprise-wide visibility from cybersecurity projects gives data teams the context to make informed recommendations, making the link between security and operational outcomes clearer than ever.”
“Security investments protect the business investments,” Miller said. “As the company drives deeper into technology-centered operation, data and digital assets will need more protection, in more places, in many more complex ways. This requires advanced and innovative solutions to achieve the highest return and reduce potential losses.”
Closing the gap between OT security and business goals
The executives address where OT cybersecurity strategies diverge from broader business objectives and how governance, shared metrics, and cross-functional collaboration can help close the gap.
“OT requirements focus on availability, which is pure alignment to broad enterprise objectives that focus on revenue and deliverables,” Goswami detailed. “OT cybersecurity objectives that attempt to secure, patch, scan, and limit navigation are in direct conflict with availability – you can’t patch an OT system that is in run mode; and patching may cause unexpected consequences.”
He added that establishing governance councils that include security and OT-facing personnel, as well as business and risk leaders, helps to resolve the cyber – OT conflict. “Providing metrics (KPIs, KRIs) and visibility to a core team helps to find common ground. Yes, producing today is important, but can we patch in a reasonable time frame so that we may continue to produce next quarter?”
Goswami further noted that a cross-collaborative team provides guidance, prioritization, and organizational support to balance the short-term needs of the business with long-term resilience requirements.
“OT cybersecurity teams are notoriously slow adopters of digital transformation. This is because they have myriad operational challenges, such as legacy equipment and uptime mandates, and very real-world consequences of failure,” Bramson said. “Bridging this gap must include early cross-collaboration between all parts of the organization that are responsible for digital transformation. Decisions and metrics need to be risk-based and consequence-driven. Giving OT cyber a meaningful role from the very beginning will help avoid breakdowns and effectively manage risks.”
Tufts recognizes that the biggest gap between OT cybersecurity and business goals is speed. “Leaders want rapid progress, but OT projects take time to undo decades of inherited IT practices. Bridging that gap requires patience and structured collaboration. Cross-functional efforts, like linking vulnerability management, network segmentation, and SOC/IR teams, are helping OT security mature faster. Governance is also critical.”
While often overlooked, he added that top-down policies, standards, training, and metrics align OT teams with business priorities. “Historically, technicians created their own processes; now formal governance is driving consistency and security across operations.”
“Security is often seen as the ‘Department of No,’” Miller said. “This needs to shift to enabling the business to do what it needs, but in a secure way. Security’s role in regulatory compliance, root-cause analysis, reliability, and loss-prevention are shared KPIs.”
Impacting cybersecurity in industrial design from the start
The executives discuss the strategic value of embedding cybersecurity into the design and planning of new industrial sites and systems, rather than retrofitting later, and examine how leading organizations are putting this into practice.
Goswami identified that adding cybersecurity to the initial design and development efforts of a greenfield environment reduces overall cost significantly. “Asking the cyber team to participate at the beginning of the project allows the teams to understand requirements, strategies, and overall vision before spending any capital. The risk of not including an OT team is finding out ‘after-the-build’ that the policies and standards they were building were about to become obsolete, and the newly installed systems are already obsolete.”
He added that leading organizations treat new construction just like an M&A activity, seeking to leverage cross-collaboration with subject matter experts and leading strategic thinkers to develop innovative and flexible designs that do not have the limitations of legacy infrastructure or technical debt.
“The rapidly increasing frequency, speed, and potency of attacks mean that cybersecurity can no longer be an afterthought bolted on after a site has become operational,” according to Bramson. “Cybersecurity programs need a strong foundation that only comes from designing, engineering, and building cyber in from the beginning. Cyber-by-design increases cybersecurity capabilities, decreases cyber vulnerabilities, and makes sites cyber-ready from day one. It can also reduce the cost of building a cyber posture to a fraction of what it costs to do so on a live site.”
Lastly, he added that companies can employ a ‘Clean Build’ by ensuring exploits aren’t introduced during the construction process (e.g., through controls such as supply chain risk management and cyber acceptance testing).
Tufts said that leading organizations are approaching cybersecurity in two distinct ways. “The first is retrofitting legacy systems by building in good practices whenever possible. They look for windows of opportunity, such as during a planned turndown or automation refresh cycle, to make programmatic improvements without disrupting operations.”
“The second approach applies to greenfield builds,” Tufts noted. “Here, organizations are less constrained by legacy Purdue-based systems and can design security in from the start. In these cases, cybersecurity sits alongside new compute and interconnection capabilities, ensuring resilience and protection are built into the foundation rather than added later.”
Highlighting that ‘a dime in development saves a dollar in production,’ Miller mentioned that this holds true – probably even more so – for cybersecurity. “Bolting security onto the process after it has already been designed has proven to provide a lower degree of security at a higher cost with more friction to the business. Adding security into the development, along with cyber-informed engineering, can help design the process in a way that has a much lower upfront and long-term cost.”
Strong OT cybersecurity seen as path to AI at the edge
The executives consider whether a strong OT cybersecurity foundation can accelerate innovation by enabling AI at the edge and secure IT-OT data integration, and what conditions are needed to build that trust architecture.
“Establishing a strong OT cybersecurity foundation means building policies, governance, oversight, and controls that actively manage technologies and funnel personnel into predefined and secure environments,” Goswami said. “Once that foundation is built, and trust is established within the organization, innovation won’t be stifled; it will be amplified.”
He added that engineers, developers, and data scientists will always attempt to push the boundaries of an OT cyber program. “By partnering with these teams and defining what a secure environment looks like, you are establishing operating boundaries. As long as an innovative team stays within those boundaries, they should be allowed to do what they do best: innovate.”
Bramson pointed out that a strong OT cybersecurity foundation is critical to accelerating innovation. “Innovation is based on connectivity and controlling operational efficiency. Those, in turn, rely on cyber resiliency. Your innovation is only as good as your OT cyber program.”
“AI is only as good as the inputs it receives: garbage in equals garbage out,” Tufts said. “Strong OT cybersecurity foundations, particularly through CPS platforms, are delivering high-quality asset knowledge directly to AI platforms. This partnership will unlock efficiency and production gains that many organizations have not yet even conceptualized.”
Miller identified that a strong OT cybersecurity foundation enables the business to innovate and compete confidently. “Ransomware, data breaches, and operational impacts are often severe hits to the company’s bottom line with other residual losses through reputational damage, credit ratings, and insurance,” he concluded.
