Assessing Ransomware Risk in IT and OT Environments

Ransomware has increasingly targeted industrial and manufacturing organizations, causing major remediation costs and operational disruption; this report argues that a complex-systems mathematical approach can better assess and prioritize mitigations across IT, OT, access control, and auditing. It highlights common antecedent conditions (weak IT/OT boundaries, poor visibility of interactions, remote access risks), cites recent high-profile incidents, and recommends defense-in-depth measures such as network segmentation, asset visibility, secure remote access, patching, auditing, and tabletop exercises to reduce risk.