The goals and requirements for protecting automation and industrial systems are often different than enterprise IT.
The methods employed in IT Security sometimes overlap with Industrial/Automation, but often conflict with the specialized needs of Industrial.
Oftentimes, executives are mistakenly commissioning IT to protect OT and this could be disastrous!
Case in point: with the 2024 Crowdstrike incident shutting down and disabling billions of Windows computers: do you want your physical systems impacted by a mistake like that? I doubt it! Consider the life safety, machine damage, let alone the operational collapse of this happened. Machinery is specialized and often one-off.
OT Security requires a different approach. Yes, there is some overlap with IT, but there are also different methods, designs, and action plans for Industrial/OT.
Can a firm like Technology Consultants of the Piedmont help you? Perhaps, yes. Contact us. We’d rather say “no” and guide you a better direction than to later discover that help was needed.
—Jim Russell
2025-07-19