When IT meets OT: Cybersecurity for the physical world

The document is a high-level overview of OT cybersecurity risks, noting that real-world incidents like Ukraine’s BlackEnergy/Industroyer attacks and the Volt Typhoon campaign demonstrate the potential for kinetic impact, growing disruption (68 attacks affecting 500+ operations in the last year), and high costs (up to $140M per serious incident). It explains why OT is hard to secure—long lifecycles, legacy protocols, insecure-by-design components, availability-first operations, and misconfigurations—and outlines a layered defense approach including asset discovery, continuous vulnerability and patch management (including virtual patching), network segmentation/air-gapping, strong IAM, threat prevention, data protection and backups, supply-chain assurance, and workforce training.