EDGE Intelligence Briefing
Today’s OT risk problem isn’t a lack of awareness — it’s a lack of ownership. OT/CPS cyber incidents are not occurring daily, but when they do, recovery is increasingly difficult and costly. Recent industry data (Dragos, SANS, Waterfall, Dale Peterson) shows:
Industrial ransomware up 87% YoY, now targeting energy and critical infrastructure.
Hacktivists have already manipulated exposed ICS gear (yes, real-world impact).
Nation-state groups continue rehearsals inside U.S. critical infrastructure (Volt Typhoon).
Most organizations still do NOT have an OT incident response structure in place.
Risk is growing. Ownership isn’t. That is the blind spot.
Signals
Signals are the trends that you really need to track.
SIGNAL | WHAT IT MEANS |
|---|---|
1,693 ransomware attacks on industrial organizations (Dragos) | Target shift is complete. Manufacturing first, energy catching up. |
76 ICS cyber events with physical consequences in 2024 | Still rare, but highly concentrated in weak utilities — attackers probing for scale. |
19% of ICS incidents took over a month to remediate (SANS) | This is beyond cyber insurance tolerance levels. |
Hacktivists are abusing exposed ICS interfaces | Low sophistication, high real-world impact — the threat barrier has dropped. |
WF Economic Forum: OT is the world’s “dangerous blind spot.” | Expect policy-driven enforcement, not voluntary frameworks. |
“If AI is only making you faster and not making you rethink failure modes, you're preparing for efficiency, not survival.”
Deep Dive
Executives tend to believe CPS/OT incidents “haven’t happened here, so risk is low.” Reality: the lack of a named CPS/OT risk owner, undefined IR roles, fragmented remote access methods, and weak identity controls creates fog, not resilience.
In the next 12–18 months, expect the highest risk from ransomware impacting engineering workstations, vendor remote access misuse, or flat networks connected to hastily deployed IoT/cloud nodes. A critical gap is that few organizations have clearly assigned ownership for CPS/OT risk.
Board-Level Implications
Most organizations still lack clear ownership for CPS/OT risk, creating a blind spot where real-world incidents can escalate before leadership recognizes the severity. Recent industry data shows industrial ransomware and other attacks are increasing in frequency and impact — yet recovery is often slow and costly because response roles and governance models aren’t well established. Boards should be asking harder questions about OT risk ownership and resiliency.
Executive Accountability — The OT Blind Spot Test
You’ve seen the signal: real-world OT incidents still catch leaders off guard because the problem isn’t awareness — it’s ownership.
Industrial ransomware, exposed ICS interfaces, and fragile recovery paths are no longer theoretical. They are increasingly visible across energy, manufacturing, and critical infrastructure environments.
But here is the question that actually matters in executive reality:
If a board director asked you right now:
“Can you articulate, in one sentence, how your organization would detect and contain an OT incident before it affects physical operations — and who is accountable for that outcome?”
What would you say?
Not the theory.
Not the slide deck.
Not a vendor promise.
A sentence you could defend under pressure.
Because in practice:
Organizations routinely discover OT blind spots only after incidents escalate.
Leaders assume risk is low because nothing has happened yet — not because assurance exists.
Asset visibility gaps and incident-ownership confusion are not technical failures. They are governance failures.
If you can answer that boardroom question confidently, you have earned the strategic clarity required to manage this risk.
If you hesitate, qualify your answer, or reach for language like “we’re improving visibility” — then the reality is already ahead of your posture.
That is not an abstract conversation.
That is leadership accountability in motion.
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Pause — This Is Where FREE Ends
This briefing explained why the OT blind spot persists and how real-world incidents still bypass leadership expectations.
It did not resolve the hardest operational question of all:
What decisions are happening inside your OT environment today — and how would you defend accountability for them after an incident?
If you oversee operations, safety, enterprise risk, or advise a board — forward this.
This is not an engineering issue.
It is an ownership and accountability issue that cannot be resolved in isolation.
The Executive Briefing exists for one purpose:
to pressure-test the judgment calls and language leaders rely on before an OT incident becomes a board-level or public crisis.
That work is not about awareness.
It is about decision trade-offs that matter when uptime, safety, liability, and reputation are on the line.
