The importance of OT security solutions is underscored by the increasing reliance on operational technology across various industries. Sectors such as manufacturing, energy, transportation, and healthcare depend on OT for their day-to-day operations, making them attractive targets for cyberattacks. OT security solutions provide a robust framework to secure these critical systems, ensuring uninterrupted services and maintaining the safety and reliability of operations.

A key strength of OT security solutions lies in their ability to address the particular challenges inherent in OT environments. These include the presence of legacy systems, specialized protocols, and interconnected devices that may not have built-in security measures. OT security solutions offer protocol and application decoding, enabling organizations to understand and secure these complex environments effectively. By integrating with existing IT security systems, OT security solutions provide a unified view of the entire infrastructure, facilitating better management and response capabilities.

The market for OT security solutions is rapidly maturing, driven by the urgent need to secure critical infrastructure and industrial systems. Vendors in this space are continuously innovating to meet the diverse requirements of organizations across industries. Some vendors bring expertise from related fields, enhancing their OT security offerings, while others have emerged specifically to address the unique challenges of securing operational technology. This evolving landscape ensures a constant flow of innovative solutions, providing organizations with effective tools to protect their OT assets.

The target audience for OT security solutions encompasses a wide range of organizations that rely on operational technology for their core operations. These include industries with stringent safety and reliability requirements, such as manufacturing, where any disruption can have significant economic and societal impacts. Energy providers, transportation networks, and healthcare facilities also fall into this category, as they increasingly adopt digital technologies while ensuring the security and availability of their critical systems.

OT security solutions are vital for organizations seeking to secure their operational technology infrastructure. By providing automated discovery, dynamic segmentation, AI-powered threat detection, and specialized OT security capabilities, these solutions help organizations protect their assets, maintain operational continuity, and mitigate the risk of cyberattacks. With the increasing convergence of IT and OT systems, the demand for robust OT security solutions will continue to rise, driving innovation and ensuring the resilience of critical infrastructure and industrial operations worldwide.

This is our second year evaluating the OT Security space in the context of our Key Criteria and Radar reports. This report builds on our previous analysis and considers how the market has evolved over the last year.

This GigaOm Radar report examines 19 of the top OT security solutions and compares offerings against the capabilities (table stakes, key features, and emerging features) and nonfunctional requirements (business criteria) outlined in the companion Key Criteria report. Together, these reports provide an overview of the market, identify leading OT security offerings, and help decision-makers evaluate these solutions so they can make a more informed investment decision.

The post GigaOm Radar for Operational Technology (OT) Security appeared first on Gigaom.

This feature has become increasingly popular in recent years, especially with the rise of telecommuting and flexible work arrangements. Moreover, secure remote access ensures that employees have continuous access to critical data and applications needed for their work, even outside of regular working hours. This feature guarantees that employees can respond promptly to urgent requests and work on important projects without being constrained by geographical or time limitations.

In the past, virtual private networks (VPNs) have been the conventional means of achieving secure remote access. VPNs offered an alternative to exposing internal systems’ remote access protocols, such as SSH and RDP, to the internet, where unauthorized individuals could attempt to establish a connection. By implementing a VPN, organizations gained greater control over who could access these remote access protocols.

However, VPNs have limitations on the degree of control they offer because they often grant authorized users excessive access to internal networks and resources. Furthermore, VPNs do not account for the context in which legitimate users access resources through the VPN.

Zero-trust network access (ZTNA) addresses the limitations of VPNs by implementing an access model based on both the user’s identity and the context of the connection request. For example, each time a connection is requested, the system establishes a trusted relationship with the user, unlike VPNs, which establish trust once and do not review it again. This approach ensures that access to internal networks and resources is restricted to only authorized users in specific contexts—such as location, time of day, and device type—providing enhanced security and control. By taking into account these contextual factors, ZTNA can effectively mitigate many risks that are left unaddressed by VPNs.

Business Imperative
The modern enterprise must navigate an evolving cyber threat landscape and a dynamic digital environment. With remote work and cloud-based applications, the traditional network perimeter has dissolved, exposing organizations to new risks. Therefore, secure access to corporate resources is now imperative. ZTNA solutions offer a modern security approach, addressing the limitations of traditional castle-and-moat security.

By adopting a zero-trust access policy, organizations ensure authorized users and devices gain conditional access to specific applications and resources. This fine-grained control protects against data breaches and unauthorized access, reducing risks. ZTNA enables businesses to embrace digital transformation and cloud technologies while maintaining a robust security posture and protecting sensitive data, which is essential for maintaining customer trust.

CxOs will appreciate ZTNA’s ability to provide a strong security foundation supporting digital initiatives and strategic goals. It enables secure remote work, facilitates cloud migration, and ensures compliance, future-proofing the organization’s security infrastructure. With centralized visibility and control over access policies, ZTNA also streamlines security management, thereby reducing complexity. In summary, ZTNA is a strategic enabler, providing necessary security to support digital transformation and protect the organization’s most valuable assets.

Sector Adoption Score
To help executives and decision-makers assess the potential impact and value of a ZTNA solution deployment to the business, this GigaOm Key Criteria report provides a structured assessment of the sector across five factors: benefit, maturity, urgency, impact, and effort. By scoring each factor based on how strongly it compels or deters adoption of a ZTNA solution, we provide an overall Sector Adoption Score (Figure 1) of 4 out of 5, with 5 indicating the strongest possible recommendation to adopt. This indicates that a ZTNA solution is a strong candidate for deployment and worthy of thoughtful consideration.

The factors contributing to the Sector Adoption Score for ZTNA are explained in more detail in the Sector Brief section that follows.