Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

This article defines a taxonomy of OT cyber-attacks (Category 1: IT TTPs with types 1a–1c; Category 2: OT TTPs with types 2a–2b), presents an analysis of 35 years of public OT incidents showing 83% are IT-TTP-driven (notably a surge in cyber extortion since 2020), discusses the potential for criminals to shift toward OT-specific attacks, and introduces a proof-of-concept called "Dead Man’s PLC" that could enable destructive or coercive control of PLCs and operational processes.