OT Cyber from Prevention to Response: Lessons Learned from the Field with Booz Allen
23rd November 2025Trium and Booz Allen recently partnered to deliver a breakfast briefing to Brokers on understanding OT environments. Booz Allen shares some lessons from the field.
Having a broad-based conversation about Operational Technology (OT) cybersecurity can be challenging due to the technical depth of the topic and the breadth of the term ‘OT.’ However, we’ll discuss the key drivers behind the OT cybersecurity threat as well as our lessons learned from hundreds of OT Cybersecurity Assessments and Tool Deployments across global organizations and a wide range of critical infrastructure sectors.
What is OT and The Increasing Threat to OT Systems
The term ‘OT’ encompasses multiple types of Process and Industrial Control Systems (ICS) – computer systems that support the physical industrial processes that have a daily impact on our lives. OT enables the delivery of electric power to homes, the manufacturing processes that assemble vehicles, and the distribution centers that put food on our shelves. The nature of OT environments requires system resilience and nearly 100% availability. The need to operate nearly 24/7/365 contributes to aging assets and to the difficulty of arranging downtime windows for maintenance, patching, and system upgrades.
Additionally, using OT data on the IT network offers opportunities for cost efficiencies across the business. Still, these connections also blur the lines between OT and IT systems, potentially to the detriment of security. This combination of increasing OT-IT connectivity and OT systems left under-patched by necessity heightens the overall security risk.
Increasingly, the results of these attacks are seen in the news and on our shelves as production lines are stopped. No longer the remit of a teenager in a basement, modern threat actors include organized criminal groups conducting financial extortion via ransomware, hacktivists seeking to make a political statement, and sophisticated state actors with the geopolitical aim of disrupting a rival nation’s economy, military, or critical infrastructure. The risk of disruption is ever-increasing despite a regulatory push to better mitigate these threats.
LESSONS LEARNT: From hundreds of Booz Allen engagements, the largest lesson learned is that while OT tooling is an important piece, the organization and the people are the foundational bedrock of sustainable OT Security outcomes.
- Align People, Process, & Tools from the Start – Many organizations prioritize tooling deployment and later experience issues in which the data collected doesn’t align with their employees’ skills or their critical use cases, leading to reduced ROI or even a rip-and-replace.
- TAKEAWAY: The pressure to act quickly to mitigate rising threats often leads to the suboptimal outcomes above, however, it’s important to lay the groundwork so that the process is executed correctly the first time. A well-planned approach will increase the chances of success and should include designing an organization-wide strategy and a clear target state across people, processes, and technology.
- Bridge the OT-IT Divide – Many organizations have existing IT cybersecurity with related risk management and governance structures. They attempt to apply IT cybersecurity controls to the OT environment without tailoring them to OT’s unique technical and operational environment, leading to culture clashes, stalled projects, suboptimal security outcomes, and safety concerns.
- TAKEAWAY: Recognize how OT differs from IT and limit duplication of IT cybersecurity structures and approaches. Utilise existing IT structures where feasible, while tailoring them to the OT environment to increase adoption rates. Be sure to integrate existing OT practices, such as risk assessments, Layers of Protection Analysis (LOPA), and Hazard and Operability Study (HAZOP), when developing OT governance policies.
- Involve Sites Early and Undergo the Journey Together: Many organizations develop OT cyber guidance independently in a central office and push it to operational sites without consulting them. This often results in policies that are unaligned with operational requirements as well as stakeholder resistance.
- TAKEAWAY: Involve site stakeholders from the beginning as they’ll be key players in day-to-day OT security functions. Solicit feedback and listen to it to ensure ownership. Identify site representatives for OT security, set clear expectations, and make business leaders accountable for cybersecurity.
CRITICAL TECHNICAL CONTROLS: With alignment on the high-level vision for an OT security program in place, our experience shows that the following tactical technical controls are most likely to reduce OT security risk.
- Asset Management – It is hard to protect assets you do not know exist. A comprehensive OT asset inventory and asset management processes are the backbone of security functions, from vulnerability management to incident response.
- Network Architecture & Segmentation – A flat, converged operational environment makes it easy for threat actors to pivot from IT to OT and between OT subsystems. Separate IT and OT systems where possible, and implement compensating controls, such as firewalls and monitoring, where business and operational needs require connections. Applying industry-recognized cybersecurity frameworks help guide these decisions.
- Network Visibility & Monitoring – You can’t protect what you can’t see. Security teams need to be able to collect, analyze, and act on OT environment data to detect and respond to threats, and they’re only as good as the data they receive. Collect logs from OT assets and networking equipment where feasible and implement OT Passive Network Monitoring to increase visibility and anomaly detection.
- OT Incident Response – Don’t get caught flat-footed. Incidents will occur, and when they do, your teams need to be well-drilled in response procedures to restore operations quickly and minimize the effects on the business. When an incident is detected, time is of the essence, and unclear response actions, escalation structures, and communications slow the security team down and lengthen the disruption. Create OT-specific Incident Response playbooks and hold exercises at both the executive and operator levels to practice response and implement lessons learned.
- The most efficient way to implement this is to pair your onsite teams with an IR retainer from a business with specialist skills in OT – being sure to avoid ‘best endeavors solutions’ from non-OT practitioners. The IR team on retainer should be well-integrated into the site and consist of team members with real OT engineering and cybersecurity experience.
OT security transformation requires investment of time and resources, but aligning people, process, and technical controls is applicable across organizations and can aid at any stage of an organization’s OT Maturity journey. This journey can be long and expensive or productive and efficient, and this is often down to the type of partner selected. While a cheap supplier may please the accounts department today, real-world practical experience and thousands of previous engagements come at a premium and save time, effort, and budget in the lifecycle of OT Maturity. A business that has both IT and OT professionals who have both ‘done the job’ and hold globally-recognized certifications will make the job more efficient and leave the customer with a streamlined, effective, integrated, and secure estate that reduces the risk to both profits and people for the long term.
Written By: Hatteras Hoops, OT Security Delivery Leader for Europe
Booz Allen specializes in OT Cybersecurity at every stage of the value chain and at every maturity level across hundreds of critical infrastructure engagements across the globe. Booz Allen is the advanced technology company delivering outcomes at speed for multinational, systemically important organizations. We build technology solutions using AI, cyber, and other cutting-edge technologies to advance and protect the defense of critical national infrastructure and critical entities. By focusing on outcomes, we enable our people, clients, and their missions to succeed, accelerating their goals and supporting our purpose: Empower People to Change the World.®
Trium Cyber Insurance: Protection That Goes Beyond the Policy
Trium Cyber works with clients who rely on OT to run their business. With Trium, you’re not just transferring risk – you’re actively reducing it. Our policies combine comprehensive insurance coverage with proactive cybersecurity services, giving you complete, all-round protection.
Included in your coverage is TRAM (True Risk Avoidance and Mitigation) – a powerful suite of tools designed to help you stay ahead of evolving cyber threats.
One standout feature of TRAM is Thinkst Canary – a cutting-edge solution ideal for Operational Technology (OT) environments. These easy-to-deploy honeypots act as early warning systems, instantly alerting you when unauthorized scanning or access occurs. Unlike traditional reactive tools, Thinkst Canary delivers high-fidelity, proactive threat detection – and is one of the few solutions that can be safely and effectively deployed in OT settings.
This is just one of the many ways Trium goes beyond traditional insurance – by helping you prevent incidents before they happen.
At Trium, our True policy is designed with real-world risks in mind. Our broad definition of “network” encompasses claims related to Operational Technology (OT), Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and SCADA environments. Giving you greater confidence in the protection of both your IT and OT landscapes.