Operational Technology (OT) Visibility

What Is Operational Technology (OT) Visibility?

Operational Technology (OT) visibility is the ability to gain a clear, real-time understanding of all assets and activity within OT environments. It is essential for monitoring, managing, and securing the systems that support critical infrastructure—such as manufacturing, energy, transportation, and healthcare.

With comprehensive OT visibility, organizations can detect vulnerabilities, identify unauthorized devices, and respond swiftly to emerging threats. It enables proactive risk management and strengthens cyber resilience in environments where downtime is not an option.

Without OT visibility, critical infrastructure is exposed to intrusion, malware, and other cyber threats. These threats can disrupt operations and even compromise national security. A lack of visibility creates gaps that attackers can exploit. This raises the risk of downtime, financial loss, and reputational damage. Strong OT visibility is essential to protect the systems that support modern industries.

Industry 4.0 and OT Visibility Challenges

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) has transformed industrial processes with cyber-physical systems (CPS) that automate the monitoring and control of OT assets through IT infrastructure. However, these advancements also introduce unique OT visibility challenges. Despite the benefits of CPS, the lack of comprehensive OT visibility increases data security risks and exposes critical systems to potential cyber threats.

Without adequate OT visibility, security management in OT networks becomes increasingly difficult. This lack of insight leaves systems vulnerable to hacking, phishing attempts, and other cyberattacks, ultimately compromising the safety and reliability of industrial operations. Addressing these visibility gaps is essential for securing OT environment in the age of Industry 4.0.

Connectivity and Security in Industrial Control Systems (ICS)

Cyber-physical systems are comprised of different digital tools that all share the common trait of connectivity. Through connectivity, physical systems (CPS) automate industrial processes, thus allowing for better allocation of resources and increased productivity. Industrial Control Systems (ICS), which include Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems and Distributed Control System (DCS), have been around for decades. Long before Industry 4.0 came into fruition. However, the development of physical systems (CPS) over the last few years saw the silo that Industrial Control Systems (ICS) once operated in begin to erode with the introduction of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are now connected to the “outside” world, increasing their exposure to threats like denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and other security breaches.

A survey conducted by the SANS institute found that nearly 40% of devices in the Manufacturing Zone (Purdue levels 0, 1, 2, and 3) are connected to enterprise networks. This connectivity underscores the growing need for vulnerability management, authentication, and application security awareness in OT environment.

Operational Technology is Becoming More Connected

By using connectivity, CPS have helped enterprises improve performance. They boost efficiency, reduce downtime, and lead to better material use, stronger customer experiences, and higher returns.

However, as OT systems become more connected, they also become more exposed. Hackers can exploit gaps in perimeter security. Blind spots in visibility allow compromised devices to go undetected. That’s why strong intrusion detection and endpoint security are essential.

The need for robust cybersecurity is imperative. Yet, visibility challenges remain a fundamental obstacle as blind spots allow vulnerabilities to go unaccounted for. Without comprehensive OT asset visibility, incident response teams struggle to safeguard critical infrastructure from ransomware attacks, data breaches and unauthorized access.

Operational Technology Visibility

Asset visibility is the foundation of effective asset management and critical for OT cybersecurity. Many devices connect to Operational Technology networks, and maintaining reliability depends on proper asset management. Continuous visibility gives insight into all assets in the OT environment. This supports better decision-making and ensures that security measures are applied correctly.

Legacy technology means Operational Technology (OT) was not designed with cybersecurity in mind. As a result, many visibility tools don’t work in OT environments. Traditional network scanning solutions are often incompatible with OT devices. In fact, one study found that nearly 90% of enterprises have very limited OT visibility. This lack of insight leaves them vulnerable to security breaches and cyber attacks.

OT visibility is important not just within the OT environment but across the entire organization. The rise of IoT technologies has exposed OT systems to a broader threat landscape. That’s why full visibility and management of assets in both OT and IT environments is critical.

However, visibility in the IT domain is also lacking. Reports show that 75% of enterprises are facing growing visibility gaps across end-user devices and IoT assets.

The Importance of OT Visibility for Cybersecurity

Asset Management

Asset management tools help identify devices and create detailed inventories. Yet, many enterprises lack visibility at the physical layer because existing security tools don’t cover this domain. This leaves hardware-level risks neglected and asset inventories incomplete and inaccurate.

With complex OT and IT supply chains and diverse device types, understanding an asset’s true identity is crucial—and that requires physical layer visibility. This data reveals much more than network information; it provides electrical and physical device specifications. Simply knowing a device exists isn’t enough. In fact, passive devices often remain completely invisible to enterprises.

Physical layer visibility enables detection of devices that do not generate network traffic and would otherwise remain unnoticed. Additionally, physical layer data offers crucial insights into IIoT devices, many of which are non-802.1x compliant and currently rely on MAC address authentication, a method vulnerable to spoofing. Achieving complete OT visibility empowers enterprises to accurately assess each device’s risk posture and apply targeted remediation measures.

Access Management

Asset visibility and asset management lay the groundwork for access management and policy enforcement. Effective cybersecurity depends on the enterprise’s ability to control user and device access to critical resources.

The interconnectedness of IT/OT environment means access management and policy enforcement are more necessary than ever. Maintaining OT visibility and reliability means heavily controlling access to such resources. Pre-defined policies determine, under what circumstances, an entity can access a resource. In other words, security policies address “who, what, where, when, how, or why”.

Access management tools enforce these pre-defined policies by assessing a device and comparing it with the policy’s requirements. Naturally, this is where the importance of an accurate asset inventory comes into play. A flawed asset inventory, due to the Physical Layer blind spot, undermines policy enforcement and access management – a significant risk as all it takes is the exploitation of a single weak spot to jeopardize the entire enterprise.

Rogue Device Mitigation

Attackers exploit the physical layer blind spot using rogue devices. These hardware attack tools intentionally deceive existing security solutions (MiTM). By hiding their presence or spoofing their identity by using the same VID/PID/Class ID parameters as legitimate devices, thereby raising no alarms. In turn, access controls, such as network segmentation and Zero Trust – which are often relied on as robust defense mechanisms against the cybersecurity risks associated with Industry 4.0 – are futile in preventing these perilous devices from penetrating and moving laterally across the network. This is a significant risk to Operational Technology visibility as Industry 4.0 has expanded the attack surface considerably.

An interconnected environment that lacks effective access controls means any asset can act as an entry point. In which the first point of compromise gets used as a gateway to more sought-after resources. Hardware-based attackers simply need to attach a rogue device to the most accessible endpoint or network switch.
For enterprises that continue to maintain an air-gap, Operation Technology is still not immune to hardware-based attacks.

A study by ESET found that 100% of attacks compromising air-gapped networks used USB devices. This highlights the importance of robust security training and safeguards to mitigate such risks.

Sepio Solution for Operational Technology Visibility

OT visibility is a core component of critical infrastructure. It is highly vulnerable thanks its convergence with IT and the development of IIoT. To improve the security posture of cyber physical systems and maintain their continuous operability, enterprises need to get to the root cause of the problem. Visibility.
Sepio’s platform provides a panacea to the gap in device visibility by offering protection on the Physical Layer.
By going deeper than any other security solution, Sepio uses Physical Layer information to calculate a digital fingerprint of all IT, OT, IoT and IIoT assets – managed or unmanaged. No device goes undetected. Sepio accurately identifies devices and their associated risk posture based on multiple Physical Layer parameters and a unique machine learning algorithm to provide visibility like never before. Traffic monitoring can only tell you so much. Sepio’s ultimate visibility means unmanaged switches, passive taps and out-bound devices no longer fly under the radar. The solution continuously monitors all hardware assets to account for any anomalies. Issuing an alert when there are any chances to a device’s risk posture.

Physical Layer Visibility for Operational Technology Cybersecurity

Sepio Asset Risk Management empowers system administrators to define granular hardware access policies based on a device’s role, characteristics, and associated risk score, implementing a Zero Trust Hardware Access approach. Sepio continuously verifies and validates the identity of all hardware assets to strengthen policy enforcement.

The platform integrates seamlessly with other access control systems via dedicated APIs, delivering comprehensive access management.

Enhanced by an internal threat intelligence database, Physical Layer visibility enables immediate detection of rogue devices. Spoofed peripherals are accurately identified for what they truly are, not what they pretend to be, and hidden network implants become instantly visible.

When a rogue device is detected or a device violates predefined policies, Sepio automatically blocks the unauthorized hardware through smooth third-party integrations. Sepio’s Rogue Device Mitigation feature effectively prevents unwanted and malicious assets from accessing the network and causing harm to Operational Technology environments.

Ensure Complete OT Visibility and Secure Your Critical Infrastructure Today

Take control of your OT security with Sepio’s advanced Physical Layer visibility solution. Schedule a demo now to discover how we can help you identify and protect every asset in your OT environment, eliminating blind spots and strengthening your cybersecurity posture.