79 INDUSTRIALS & MANUFACTURING the same time, manufacturers face a shortage of cybersecurity personnel, a growing wave of sophisticated attacks and the rapid emergence of weaponised generative AI tools that allow threat actors to operate at machine speed. Identity-based attacks are also rising sharply, with many breaches occurring when attackers log in using compromised credentials rather than breaking through traditional defences. Manufacturers often describe legacy OT environments as fragile or untouchable, fearing that any change could disrupt production. Sircar believes this perception can lead organisations to underestimate the risks of inaction. “Legacy environments were designed for a very different era – limited connectivity, predictable access and long equipment lifecycles,” he says. “What’s changed is how those systems are now accessed and integrated. Remote support, third-party maintenance and IT/OT convergence have expanded the attack surface, often without corresponding visibility or controls. In many environments today, the bigger risk is operating blind. Incremental, well-sequenced modernisation reduces operational risk compared to leaving environments unchanged and implicitly trusted.” Recent research supports this view, with 70 per cent of OT incidents linked to unmanaged remote access or outdated IT/OT integration rather than the intrinsic fragility of industrial equipment itself, according to a report by the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team. Many manufacturers are turning to capabilities within the Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing portfolio – including Azure, Defender and Sentinel – to strengthen security across both legacy and modern systems while laying the groundwork for an AI-enabled future. As organisations rethink their security setup, many are exploring how established cybersecurity principles can be adapted to industrial environments. One of the most important is zero trust, a model that assumes no user, device or system should be trusted by default. While zero trust is widely understood in IT environments, it can sometimes feel abstract or disruptive in manufacturing settings. According to Sircar, these are misconceptions. “The biggest misunderstanding is that zero trust means ripping and replacing systems or deploying Photo: iStock/Organic Media
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