Earns Recognition in 2022 Gartner^® Market Guide for Operational Technology Security

DENVER — Nov. 3, 2022 — Global conflicts and national infrastructure needs are bringing operational technology (OT) to the forefront of the security market. Optiv, the cyber advisory and solutions leader, is extending its end-to-end capabilities to serve clients’ essential assets with heavy investment in people, process and technology for its OT cyber program.

Critical industries, such as pharmaceuticals, heavy manufacturing, energy and food and beverage production, are facing the same rapidly changing and intensifying threat landscape as today’s enterprises and governments. Optiv’s holistic security program guides clients toward cyber maturity via more modern, integrated IT/OT systems. In addition, the offering goes beyond traditional OT security to uncover previously unknown areas of risk and define tactical opportunities to improve the security posture of a client’s OT environment.

“Our objectives are to keep operations online, reduce costs and downtime, and maintain the overall cyber resilience of our clients’ OT environments. We’re able to leverage our extensive combined industrial control system (ICS) expertise to identify and quantify cyber risk so the transition to more modern, outcome-driven security is smoother than not,” said Sean Tufts, IoT/OT security leader, Optiv.

Historically, industrial facilities have relied on dated ICS technologies coupled with siloed, operations-centric network security. According to Gartner, security and risk management leaders responsible for OT systems security should “anchor security efforts to operational resilience in the face of mounting risks by adopting an integrated security strategy beyond legacy OT.”¹

Introducing traditional IT technologies to OT environments can improve data utilization. However, new devices and data sources open up antiquated OT networks to a whole slew of vulnerabilities they aren’t equipped to detect. It’s vital for security to be involved in the optimization and convergence of IT and OT, because Gartner also predicts “by 2025, attackers will have weaponized OT environments to successfully harm or kill humans.” ² Optiv helps clients prepare for and cover that expanding threat surface with physical walkthroughs, risk assessments, asset discovery, threat modeling and strategic roadmapping.

In addition, Optiv’s OT cyber program offers technical network validation and network architectural services made possible by strategic, collaborative relationships with major players in OT cybersecurity products.

Learn more about Optiv’s OT Security Services with these resources:

Learn more about Optiv at https://www.optiv.com/company/optiv-newsroom.

¹ Gartner, “Market Guide for Operational Technology Security,” By Katell Thielemann, Wam Voster, Barika Pace, Ruggero Contu, Published August 2, 2022.

² Gartner, Gartner Predicts By 2025 Cyber Attackers Will Have Weaponized Operational Technology Environments to Successfully Harm or Kill Humans, Published July 17, 2021.

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