Cyber Security Awareness Month 2025
Operational Technology (OT) security has moved from a niche discussion to a frontline concern. Across manufacturing, utilities, transport, and critical national infrastructure (CNI), attackers are now targeting operational uptime itself. The question for 2026 is no longer whether IT and OT should converge, but how to make that convergence secure, visible, and measurable.
In line with Cyber Security Awareness Month 2025’s focus on MFA and identity protection, this blog explores how those same principles are vital to securing Operational Technology (OT) environments and maintaining operational uptime.
The 2026 Context
Underinvestment, skills shortages, and cultural resistance continue to define the OT security landscape.
In many organisations, OT environments remain theoretically separate from IT but are connected through digital transformation, remote management, and supply chain integration. This silent convergence has created new pathways for attackers. Disrupting operations is no longer theoretical; it is a profitable, proven attack strategy.
Why “IT/OT Convergence” Misses the Real Point
The term “IT/OT convergence” has dominated industry conversations for years. But it often masks a deeper issue…
…IT prioritises confidentiality. OT prioritises availability.
When systems on the production floor go offline, safety, efficiency, and profitability are immediately affected. Traditional IT-focused security approaches do not account for the operational fragility of OT environments.
Legacy systems often cannot be patched or safely taken offline. Protecting them requires pragmatic security strategies that maintain uptime while improving visibility and detection.
The Real Challenge: Visibility Over Patchability
Many OT assets cannot support modern defences such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) or rapid patching. Resilience therefore depends on visibility, correlation, and control rather than surface hardening alone.
Security Operations Centres (SOCs) are now essential for bridging this gap. Centralised monitoring allows teams to detect threats across both IT and OT networks, monitor east-west traffic, and correlate alerts that might otherwise appear unrelated.
e2e-assure’s SOC services help organisations unify IT and OT visibility, detect identity-driven threats, and reduce noise through contextual correlation. Instead of reacting to isolated alerts, teams can see the bigger picture and respond before disruption spreads.
Identity in OT: Why Everything Needs an Identity
As IT and OT environments continue to overlap, identity has become the new perimeter. Machines, IoT sensors, contractors, and even industrial controllers all need verified identities to ensure secure access and accountability.
Without strong identity frameworks, attackers can exploit trust gaps between systems. A compromised contractor account or unmonitored device can quickly become a backdoor into production systems.
Identity-aware OT security uses centralised authentication, access control, and continuous monitoring to create a verifiable chain of trust. It allows teams to know who or what is accessing critical systems, when, and why.
Operational Uptime: The New Attack Surface
“Attackers aren’t just stealing data anymore. They’re stealing uptime.”
Simon, Interim CXO at e2e-assure
Simon explains further:
“Operational uptime is the new attack vector for nation-state and criminal groups. The high-profile attacks we’ve seen against UK PLC this year are in danger of becoming the new normal, but we simply can’t afford to lose that kind of productivity nor rely on government bailouts. Industrial organisations will need to take a more holistic approach to security.
There are two paths to resilience:
One is decentralising and hardening operational systems while keeping them segregated from IT.
The other is managing IT and OT together by giving everything an identity in a converged environment. Hardening alone can’t keep pace with digital transformation, so the ability to generate and contextualise alerts across both, including people, assets, and east-west network traffic, becomes key.
The first line of defence can no longer be the plant floor. It has to be the Security Operations Centre, managing security across IT, IIoT, and OT. We’ll see centralised Managed Detection and Response (MDR) become a major driver in 2026, supported by federated skills and coordinated remediation.”
Simon’s perspective highlights a fundamental truth. Protecting uptime is now inseparable from detecting and responding at speed. Industrial organisations must integrate SOC oversight across their digital and physical systems to maintain trust, compliance, and continuity.
Finding Business Resilience
OT security has matured from an abstract concept into a measurable business priority. Organisations are beginning to recognise that protecting uptime is not just about patching or compliance, but about ensuring continuous, trusted operations.
e2e-assure supports this shift by combining SOC expertise, identity-aware monitoring, and AI-driven analytics to give customers the visibility and control needed to stay ahead of operational risk.
Book a session with the team to explore how SOC-as-a-service can strengthen your organisation’s operational uptime.
