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Sponsored: Beyond the firewall: Why your IT security isn’t enough to save your operational systems
The lines between the digital office and the physical plant, factory or operations have vanished.
01 November 2025
The lines between the digital office and the physical plant, factory or operations have vanished. Operational Technology (OT), Information Technology (IT), and the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) are converging into one seamless, interconnected ecosystem. This convergence is driving efficiency, but, critically, it’s also creating a new, terrifyingly vulnerable attack surface.
It might seem intuitive to assume that your existing IT-centric Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution can just be “lifted and shifted” to secure your industrial control systems (ICS). That assumption is dangerously flawed. The fundamental priorities of OT—safety and availability—are diametrically opposed to IT’s focus on confidentiality and integrity. When a cyberattack hits an OT environment, the consequence isn’t a data breach—it’s environmental damage, catastrophic production downtime, or worse, human lives lost.
The unmistakable difference in OT
The sheer volume of threats underscores this urgency. According to a recent Forescout Research report, the world’s critical infrastructure faced an astonishing 420 million cyberattacks in 2023, a 30% year-over-year increase. Worse still, one-third of all attacks target the very protocols used in industrial automation and power. The threat is real, rapidly increasing, and directly aimed at the systems that keep the lights on and the machines running. A successful OT-centric PAM solution must be engineered not for the cloud, but for the unforgiving realities of physical operations.
A unified security vision: zero-trust for physical assets
Effective security in this converged world requires a shift from disparate firewalls to a unified, zero-trust PAM strategy designed specifically for OT. “This provides a crucial single pane of glass to continuously monitor security posture, proactively quantify risks, and eliminate security blind spots across all IT, OT, and IoT assets,” says Adarbad Master, CTO of iCrypto Inc.
This next-generation solution is defined by a fusion of advanced technologies:
• Just-in-Time Access: Securing the highly sensitive remote access required by third-party vendors and contractors, a use case where traditional VPNs are both impractical and insecure.
• Intelligent Identity Verification: Advanced biometric authentication (like FIDO2 and AI face capture) combined with Real-time Behavioural Analytics to flag anomalies that indicate an insider threat or compromised account.
• Sensor Fusion: Integration of physical sensors, video surveillance, and network telemetry into the PAM system, providing a holistic, real-world view of risk.
• Automated Response: Leveraging Automated Detection, Response, and Orchestration (ADR/SOAR) to trigger immediate, safety-first lockdown procedures the instant an intrusion is detected.
“The payoff for adopting this comprehensive approach is immediate and dramatic. Beyond simply enhancing security, organisations in critical sectors have reported a reduction in overall PAM administration tasks by as much as 80% through automation, and a dramatic reduction of attack surface by up to 90% simply by removing unnecessary privileges, thus significantly lowering operational costs, and allowing security teams to focus on strategic defence,” adds Zane Renou, VP of iCrypto Inc. The clock is ticking. You can no longer afford to secure half your business. A standards-based, unified OT PAM solution is not an upgrade—it’s the new baseline for industrial resilience and operational safety.