In industrial environments, cybersecurity is no longer a background issue, it is an integral part of system architecture.
To better understand how OT professionals perceive today’s evolving risk landscape, we launched a short LinkedIn survey asking a direct question:
“What’s the biggest OT cybersecurity concern right now?”
The answers offer insight into current priorities:
- 67% selected Remote access risks
- 33% pointed to Unpatched devices
- 0% chose Lack of visibility or Other
These results reflect concerns we encounter daily in the field. And they reinforce a broader observation: despite the growth of new tools and platforms, the fundamentals of secure system design remain under pressure.
Let’s examine each theme more closely.
Remote Access risks remain the primary OT cybersecurity concern
Remote connectivity has become standard across industrial operations. Whether for diagnostics, maintenance, or system oversight, remote access is expected and, in many cases, essential.
But when remote access is not properly implemented, it becomes a point of vulnerability.
Common challenges include:
- Weak authentication protocols
- Insufficient access control granularity
- Lack of encrypted communication channels
- Absence of centralized logging and audit trails
According to Dragos’ 2024 Year in Review, over 60% of OT-related cyber incidents involved remote access vectors. The risk is not remote access itself, but unsecured remote access.
To address this, secure access must be designed as a native feature of the system, not an external layer.
Unpatched devices continue to threaten OT Security
Unpatched systems continue to represent a significant threat across industrial environments. In many cases, the vulnerabilities are known, but not addressed in time.
There are several reasons for this:
- Downtime constraints and 24/7 operations
- Fear of breaking compatibility
- Vendor-specific patching processes
- Limited visibility on available updates
Nozomi Networks reports that more than 30% of disclosed ICS vulnerabilities remain unpatched six months after publication.
Patch management in OT requires a different approach than in IT: more predictable, modular, and aligned with real operational constraints.
Visibility still matters in Industrial Cybersecurity
It is notable that no respondents selected “lack of visibility” as their primary concern. But this does not imply that visibility is no longer relevant.
More likely, it has become an assumed baseline or so embedded in other priorities that it no longer stands out as a standalone topic.
In practice, visibility remains essential:
- To identify unauthorized access attempts
- To monitor the status of patch deployments
- To understand device behavior and system anomalies
Without adequate visibility, even well-configured access controls or update procedures lose their effectiveness.
Designing OT Security for Resilience
Our approach to OT cybersecurity focuses on resilience by design.
This means:
- Built-in secure remote access, including encrypted connections, role-based permissions, and complete session tracking
- Modular patch management, with flexible deployment methods aligned to production requirements
- Real-time device awareness, enabling rapid detection and response to potential issues
Security is not a product layer we add at the end. It’s an architectural decision made early and maintained consistently.
OT Cybersecurity: Evolving Systems, Persistent Challenges
The results of our survey echo what we see across industries:
- Remote access must be secured, not avoided.
- Patching must be made feasible, not postponed.
- Visibility must be sustained, not assumed.
These are not new concerns. But they remain central, even as OT systems grow more connected and intelligent.
We believe that OT cybersecurity should not be driven by urgency, but by architecture.
That means moving away from reactive thinking, and building systems that are secure by default, predictable to manage, and adaptable over time.
We do not approach security as a single product or a checklist, but as a design principle that influences how we build every layer of our platform: from how devices are provisioned and updated, to how remote connections are managed, to how events are monitored in context.
Cyber threats will continue to evolve, but systems built with resilience in mind and teams empowered with visibility and control are much better positioned to respond without compromise.
