Industrial cybersecurity leaders operating within critical infrastructure sectors are facing new pressures not only to secure cyber-physical systems (CPS) from external threats but also from enhanced regulatory mandates, the need for visibility and enforcement of suppliers’ controls, and constraints from cyber insurance providers requiring robust security before granting coverage.
Taking a programmatic approach to CPS protection that focuses on people, process, and technology will account for these business drivers and reduce risk in each area accordingly. This blog will walk through what those business drivers are, what they mean for industrial operators, and what the path forward looks like.
The Challenge Facing Industrial Decision-makers
To address this pressure, executives and high-level decision-makers in industrial organizations must take note of the above challenges and act accordingly. None of this is a future scenario, and the numbers underscore the urgency:
CPS assets face real-world challenges that extend far beyond the digital world, and if compromised, the consequences potentially affect everything from costly operational downtime to endangering public safety.
There are four drivers that are significantly escalating this issue into a strategic imperative.
Regulatory Compliance and Changing Guidelines
In March 2026, the U.S. government released a new cyber strategy that included heavy mentions of securing critical infrastructure. Almost simultaneously, Michigan-based medical technology manufacturer Stryker suffered a severe cyberattack that sent its global operations to a grinding halt. A comprehensive audit later revealed that the hacktivist group that claimed responsibility for the attack was able to compromise native features in Microsoft Intune, underscoring how easily hidden vulnerabilities can be exploited by attackers—and how important it is for organizations to meet requirements outlined in regulatory frameworks.
Leaders in the industrial space are facing more stringent requirements when it comes to regulatory frameworks. IEC 62443 is rapidly becoming the de facto standard for industrial control systems (ICS) security, and regulators are using it as a benchmark. In 2025, Australia adopted the standard, ostensibly moving it from being a set of voluntary best practices to a regulatory requirement backed by international law.
The Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (CIRCIA) also continues to put pressure on the industrial sector. When put into practice, the law would require organizations to report all cyber incidents to the federal government within 72 hours, and any ransomware payments within 24 hours. Failure to comply with this will result in a minimum $500,000 fine.
What This Means for Industrial Operators
Whereas compliance once meant annual audits and routine paperwork, industrial operators now must demonstrate a continuous and robust security posture. This includes proving the organization is capable of detecting and reporting incidents within mandated timeframes in order to meet reporting requirements outlined in certain federal or industry regulations. Without capabilities such as automated monitoring and comprehensive asset inventories, compliance becomes significantly more difficult.
Market Access as a Competitive Requirement
As regulatory frameworks continue to evolve into legal guardrails for critical infrastructure, so are supply chain security requirements. Customers are taking note of this, and they’re now more likely to ask pointed questions about security controls before they sign on the dotted line. Meanwhile, it’s also becoming critical to verify the security posture of suppliers before onboarding them.
If either of these questions can’t be answered, organizations will quickly find themselves on an island. Gaps in security and remote access contributed heavily to cyberattacks in 2025, and the effects can quickly cascade if left unchecked.
Meanwhile, cyber insurance has become a gatekeeper for partnership and trust. Insurers won’t underwrite policies without evidence of strong security controls in place. Moreover, proof of insurance may be required to be trusted in a supply chain. Insurers have extensive questionnaires about controls that are in place before they'll consider providing coverage.
Also, organizations need to be wary of certain exclusions in their policies. Some of these exclusions include acts of war and other incidents relevant to critical infrastructure.
What This Means for Industrial Operators
The subject of security is progressing beyond a market differentiator and into a prerequisite. Organizations that can show mature CPS security programs gain a huge competitive advantage and will win more contracts, retain customers, and secure favorable insurance policies. This is why it’s imperative to invest in provable security controls such as secure remote access, comprehensive asset discovery, and continuous threat detection to keep the lights on for modern industrial enterprises.
Financial Protection and Operational Resilience
Every industrial security executive understands the need to manage operational and financial risk. Cyber risk is no different, but it’s been difficult to quantify until recently.
AI-powered tools such as X-Analytics can translate technical vulnerabilities into financial terms, helping drive actionable decision-making faster than ever. This can help transform security from a cost center into a risk management function with tangible ROI. For example, leaders could use tools like this to get insights into the unpatched programmable logic controller (PLC) that if exploited could halt a production line and potentially create a multimillion-dollar risk exposure. The financial impacts of ignoring this or getting it wrong could quickly skyrocket.
More financial risks come into play with CIRCIA’s post-incident reporting mandates, as mentioned above. Additionally, cyber insurance has evolved beyond a simple box-checking exercise to an essential business prerequisite. It’s common for insurers to not only offer financial protection, but also incident response efforts and legal counsel in the event of a breach. Those costs aren’t often realistic to handle in-house.
What This Means for Industrial Operators
To stay financially protected, cyber risk can no longer be a best-estimate scenario. Having quantified risks in place will not only help drive better decision-making, but also better use of where to allocate funds. This is also essential for staying resilient when an incident strikes, because statistically, breaches are not only possible, but likely.
The Imminence of the Modern Threat Landscape
As the conflict in Iran continues, so does the risk to critical infrastructure. The Stryker breach is just one example of this risk. Hacktivist groups sympathetic to Iran such as Handala, which claimed responsibility for the Stryker attack, have been enlisted by highly skilled nation-state threat actors, expanding the risk to critical sectors worldwide.
A common attack path for such threats is a simple phishing email or insecure VPNs. Hacktivist groups gain access to enterprise networks using these techniques, and weak network segmentation can enable them to move laterally across the network to affect OT. This can be especially crippling to a manufacturing environment, in which any operational downtime will put immediate pressure to pay a demanded ransom. Even then, there’s no guarantee that system access will be easily recovered.
Even though the total damages aren’t clear, the 2025 Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) attack should serve as a stark reminder of how severe these consequences can be for any organization. JLR reportedly lost up to £50 million per week, and critical systems were unavailable for weeks across multiple facilities.
What This Means for Industrial Operators
Every day that goes by without full visibility into an OT environment, proper network segmentation, and continuous threat monitoring and detection is another opportunity for attackers to close in. And in the backdrop of geopolitical conflict, insecure environments contribute to a target-rich environment in which attackers hold the advantage.
Organizations need more than just a tool to address this and related security issues. They need coordinated, programmatic workflows that ensure real-time threat detection and efficient response workflows to reduce the mean time to detect (MTTD), mean time to respond (MTTR) and contain breaches effectively.
The Bottom Line for Industrial Cybersecurity Leaders
Industrial cybersecurity is an operational imperative for leaders to address today. That imperative should consist of a robust security strategy that includes asset visibility, network segmentation, exposure management, threat detection, and secure remote access, and it demands executive ownership and a strategic investment based on quantified risks.
The first step in doing this is recognizing the unique way an organization is pressured to invest in protecting revenue. The next is closing the IT/OT skills gap through a structured approach that combines people, process, and technology.
A comprehensive CPS protection program provides the roadmap your organization needs to move from seeing problems to acting on them:
Define Governance
Establish clear ownership, RACI models, and a unified security language across IT and engineering teams.
Establish Process
Develop standard operating procedures, regular risk assessment cadences, and tailored security playbooks.
Operationalize Technology
Instead of siloed tools, leverage a purpose-built CPS protection platform that integrates visibility, exposure management, and threat detection into your existing workflows to drive measurable risk reduction.
Organizations that treat CPS security as a business priority will find themselves in a more resilient position, staying in compliance with regulatory requirements, and a trusted partner in the global supply chain.
For more information on how to get started with a CPS protection program that meets the needs of unique CPS environments, schedule a time to talk with one of our experts.
