Solving The “What Is The Threat To OT Systems” Problem

Solving The “What Is The Threat To OT Systems” Problem

Recently I wrote about the dichotomy between the reports and experts annually citing a big increase in the cyber threat to OT systems and the year after year tiny actual impact of cyber attacks on OT. Outside of ransomware on IT, not reaching OT, affecting Operations,...
Number Of Cyber Incidents With A Physical Impact Down In 2025

Number Of Cyber Incidents With A Physical Impact Down In 2025

My favorite OT security vendor threat / incident report was released last week: The Waterfall / ICS Strive 2026 OT Cyber Threat Report. It’s my favorite because of their criteria of “cyber incidents causing physical impacts” and because they include...
The OT Cyber Incident And Threat Dichotomy

The OT Cyber Incident And Threat Dichotomy

The impact of OT cyber incidents, excluding ransomware on IT, has been less than 1% of all cause OT outages and OT related financial loss. A motivated and skilled OT cyber attacker could cause a high or catastrophic incident on many OT systems in almost every sector....
Reducing OT Incident Impact Inflation

Reducing OT Incident Impact Inflation

Where does the media get the information and quotes that turn a couple of residential swimming pools of water spilling out of a water tank (Muleshoe) into a major story and congressional hearing … from us, the OT security community. Since we are part of the...
S4x26 Theme Keynote: Connect

S4x26 Theme Keynote: Connect

Below is what I intended to say on stage. It always varies a little bit live. The video will be out next week. Each S4 Conference has a single word theme. This year’s theme is Connect. Connections are exciting, unpredictable, scary, they bring opportunity, and...

Week 8: Celebrate And Prepare For S4x26

Congratulations. You’ve completed the OT Security Weekly Plan. If you are like most people, some weeks were a lot more helpful than others. Some weeks easier than others. There might have even been some weeks where you said, Dale is just wrong about this. All this is...

Week 6: Your Top 5 Critical OT Security Controls

If you take one thing from this book, my hope is it leads you to focus on OT cyber risk management rather than slavishly trying to implement and maintain a long list of good practice OT security controls (cyber hygiene). SANS and many others, including me, have put...

Week 5: Create And Track Leading Indicators

Warning: This is the most difficult task in this book for most people. OT cyber incidents and their consequences are lagging indicators. The bad event that caused the impact has already happened. While it is important to capture and present the information you...