6 Oct 2025 | A Year In OT Security
Before you go out and spend a lot of resources to purchase, deploy, and run a sophisticated OT cyber detection system, ask yourself if you are taking advantage of existing, higher fidelity detection sources. This week’s task is to use interview and brainstorming...
29 Sep 2025 | A Year In OT Security
Access control is one area where ICS have had robust security controls for decades. These access controls can be customized down to the point or tag level, although this is rarely required. Remember our goal is to enforce least privilege. A user should only be able to...
22 Sep 2025 | A Year In OT Security
Week 35 addressed user accounts for cyber assets at unmanned sites. This week you will perform a user account review on all OT systems as part of your OT cyber maintenance. Identify all OT applications, systems, and devices that have user accounts. These could be...
15 Sep 2025 | A Year In OT Security
S4x26 tickets go on sale on Sept 15th at 12:01 AM EDT (New York). We hold the best price, the ticket 1 – 100 price, for the first 36 hours. We were at ticket block 501 – 750 after the first 36 hours of S4x25 ticket sales. You saved $550 if you bought a ticket in those...
8 Sep 2025 | A Year In OT Security
Last week you identified the types and number of OT cyber assets in each of the three security patching categories. This week you will take this information and develop an OT Security Patching Program and Schedule. Remember the guiding factor is efficient risk...
1 Sep 2025 | A Year In OT Security
Security patching can be a high resource task if you try to apply security patches to all your OT cyber assets on a frequent basis, such as monthly or quarterly. The risk reduction achieved through this large effort is typically minimal given the insecure by design...
25 Aug 2025 | A Year In OT Security
Good security practice requires user authentication on all systems and applications. It also requires users to logout or be locked out when they physically leave the area or leave the cyber asset idle for too long. Many OT environments and cyber assets don’t follow...
18 Aug 2025 | A Year In OT Security
You probably aren’t a physical security expert. I’m not. We should rely on people with domain expertise to design and evaluate physical security. Your task this week is to evaluate the physical security assumptions and plan at OT manned sites and areas. What are...
11 Aug 2025 | A Year In OT Security
In a perfect world, all removable media and portable computers connected to OT would be dedicated to OT. They would only be connected and used on OT. Never on IT or any other network. One way to achieve this is to deploy data transfer servers in an OT DMZ that can...
4 Aug 2025 | A Year In OT Security
Many OT security professionals have busted the airgap myth by asking questions on how software or firmware updates, schedules, recipes, anti-virus signatures, or applications are brought into the OT environment. They often are brought in through the approved OT...
