Are You or Your IT Org Now OT Curious?

If you’ve spent years securing enterprise IT environments and recently found yourself “OT curious,” welcome. You’re in good company. The OT/ICS sector genuinely needs more defenders, and the skills you’ve built in IT are valuable and a great foundation, but not the complete picture.

Whether you’re brand new to cybersecurity or a seasoned professional who’s spent years protecting enterprise networks, there’s something important you need to understand before making the transition.

Many IT security professionals think OT security is essentially the same discipline, just applied to a different network. Same principles, same tools, same approaches… just with hard hats and cool industrial settings.

The OT security community is genuinely welcoming to people making this transition. We remember what it was like to learn this different approach. We value the fresh perspectives and skills that IT security professionals bring. And we’re excited to work with people who are curious, humble, and committed to learning.

Here’s the Reality: It’s a Fundamentally Different Discipline.

Think of it like this: If you spent years mastering Super Mario Bros., you learned precision timing, pattern recognition, and how to navigate challenges. Those skills absolutely matter when you pick up Metroid. But Metroid isn’t just “Mario with a different skin”… it’s a different kind of game entirely. You’re exploring, backtracking, managing limited resources, and making choices with long-term consequences. The core skills translate, but the strategy, the pacing, and the stakes are completely different.

That’s IT versus OT. Your IT security skills matter! But the environment, the constraints, and especially the consequences require a fundamentally different approach. A paradigm shift if you will.

OT Environments Aren’t Just a Group of Systems and Software. They Are Decades-Long Commitments Built as Complete Ecosystems

Here’s the first paradigm shift you need to understand: OT environments aren’t deployed the way IT infrastructure is. There’s no spinning up VMs, servers, and software, then configuring a network, and iterating as you go.

OT environments are deployed as complete, integrated solutions. This changes everything about how you approach security, maintenance, and change management.

Let me walk you through what this actually looks like. 

When a utility needs to add generation capacity, they start by outlining their requirements: what they need to deliver, where it’ll be located, who it’ll serve, and how they might need to scale over time. Then they work with multiple vendors who provide comprehensive solution designs and compete for the project.

Here’s what makes this different: The winning vendor doesn’t just deliver equipment and documentation. They design the solution, build it, deploy it, commission it, and then remain contracted to maintain and support the entire system for the next 15 to 30 years.

Yes, you read that correctly. Fifteen to thirty YEARS.

A Different Dimension of Impact

These systems are engineered to run for decades with minimal maintenance. They’re built to withstand extreme physical environments with significant temperature variations, spark-free zones, high humidity, continuous operation… and they need to perform reliably year after year, in many cases unmanned. To achieve this, they’re often underclocked, run with carefully managed system resources, and use real-time operating systems specifically designed for deterministic behavior and reliability.

And here’s something that really drives home how different this environment is: each one is genuinely unique, almost a work of art. They’re custom-built for the specific environment (including the physical space), the population they serve, and the exact processes they need to control. They’re all different, but made from the same fundamental building blocks. 

Think of it like Lego. You’re working with PLCs, RTUs, HMIs, etc, but they’re configured in infinite custom ways to create a solution perfectly tailored to that specific operation.

Understanding this 15- to 30-year commitment fundamentally changes how you think about security, updates, and changes. In IT, you might work with 3 to 5 year refresh cycles. In OT, you’re working with systems that were commissioned when some of your newer team members were in elementary school, and they’re expected to keep them running reliably until those team members have children of their own. 

Another key aspect that makes OT security fundamentally different from IT is the nature of the consequences when something fails.

In IT environments, security incidents and system failures have serious impacts. But in OT environments, failures have a different dimension of impact because these systems control physical processes.

In future posts, we’ll dive deeper into how each of these circumstances, and several others, impacts how you, as a defender, will need to operate in an OT environment. But for now, know that your background in IT is a great first step for becoming a skilled OT defender.

Worth the Learning Curve

The transition from IT to OT security is challenging, but it’s also an opportunity to grow as a security professional and to make a genuine difference in protecting critical infrastructure.

Your IT security background gives you a strong foundation. The defensive principles you already know – segmentation, least privilege, defense-in-depth, and continuous monitoring – all apply in OT. Your experience with security tools, threat intelligence, and incident response translates directly to OT challenges.

What you’ll add to that foundation is:

• Understanding of operational technology and physical processes 
• Respect for the operational constraints and requirements unique to OT 
• Partnership skills to work effectively with operations teams 
• Patience for the deliberate pace of change in long-lived systems 
• Appreciation for the cascade of consequences when cyber meets physical

At EmberOT, we’ve made this journey ourselves. We understand both the technical challenges and the cultural adjustments. We’ve learned through experience, sometimes the hard way, how to bridge IT security expertise and OT operational reality.

If you’re making this transition and need guidance, or if you’re an organization trying to build or strengthen your OT security program, we’re here to help. We can share what we’ve learned, help you avoid common pitfalls, and support you in building security programs that actually work in OT environments.

And that’s work worth doing.

And remember…. Always ask, “What happens in the real world if this breaks?”

The EmberOT team brings decades of combined experience in both IT and OT security. We’ve learned from real-world OT environments across utilities, energy, manufacturing, and critical infrastructure. Our mission is to help organizations protect their OT environments effectively with security approaches that respect operational realities and actually work in practice. If you’re curious about OT security or building your OT security program, we’d love to talk.