OT Risk Assessment
Our OT Risk Assessment service delivers a systematic evaluation of cybersecurity risks across your operational environment. We quantify the likelihood and consequence of cyber threats targeting your industrial systems, enabling informed investment and prioritization decisions.
Understanding Your Risk Landscape
A vulnerability assessment tells you what weaknesses exist. A risk assessment tells you which ones matter most in your specific operational context. For OT environments, risk must be evaluated in terms of operational impact, safety consequences, and regulatory obligations, not just data confidentiality.
Our OT Risk Assessment uses a structured methodology aligned with IEC 62443 and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework to quantify risk across your industrial environment and develop a risk treatment plan that aligns with how your operations actually work.
Core Assessment Areas
- Asset Categorization
- Physical Security
- Change Management
- Vulnerability Assessment
- Governance Evaluation
- Incident Response
- Threat Review
- Configuration Review
- Disaster Management
Risk-Based Approach
Quantifying risk in terms of operational, safety, and regulatory impact
Engagement Methodology
A structured, phased approach designed for the safety, availability, and compliance requirements of operational technology environments.
Requirement Understanding and Scope Definition
Establish the assessment scope, objectives, and boundaries in collaboration with the client. Identify the target facilities, OT systems, network segments, regulatory obligations, and safety constraints. Define the assessment criteria aligned with IEC 62443, NIST CSF, and applicable regional standards.
Stakeholder Kick-off and Coordination
Conduct a formal kick-off with key stakeholders including plant managers, control system engineers, IT security teams, and operations leadership. Establish communication protocols, schedule site access windows, assign points of contact, and align all parties on assessment timelines and expectations.
Documentation Collection and Pre-Assessment Review
Collect and review all existing documentation: network architecture diagrams, asset inventories, security policies and procedures, zone and conduit models, change management records, incident response plans, backup and disaster recovery plans, and remote access configurations. Identify gaps in documentation and flag areas requiring on-site validation.
Threat Understanding and Asset Analysis
Identify sector-specific threat actors, capabilities, and attack techniques using ICS-CERT advisories, MITRE ATT&CK for ICS, and regional threat intelligence. Categorize all OT assets by operational criticality, safety relevance, and process dependency. Map assets against zones and conduits to understand exposure and attack surface.
On-Site Assessment
Conduct hands-on evaluation through plant walkthroughs, stakeholder interviews, and technical validation. Verify architecture against documentation, validate asset inventory, assess physical security controls, review portable media handling, evaluate access control (logical and physical), review backup and configuration management practices, assess remote access procedures, and evaluate security awareness across operations teams.
Configuration Review
Review configurations of firewalls, managed switches, routers, and other network devices across the OT environment. Evaluate firewall rule sets, VLAN segmentation, ACLs, and routing policies. Identify overly permissive rules, default credentials, undocumented cross-zone paths, and misconfigurations that could enable lateral movement or unauthorized access.
Vulnerability Identification
Identify vulnerabilities across the OT environment through passive network analysis (PCAP-based), asset correlation against NVD, ICS-CERT advisories, vendor bulletins, and the CISA KEV catalog. Evaluate patch levels, insecure protocol usage, authentication gaps, unpatched firmware, and configuration-based exposures across PLCs, HMIs, RTUs, and engineering workstations.
Risk Analysis
Evaluate each identified risk across impact and likelihood dimensions. Impact assessment covers personnel safety, environmental consequences, operational disruption, financial exposure, and reputational harm. Likelihood assessment factors in attacker capability, entry point accessibility, exploit availability, and detection maturity. Integrate findings with existing process hazard analyses where applicable.
Risk Prioritization and Risk Register
Combine impact and likelihood ratings into a structured risk matrix aligned with IEC 62443 and ISO 31000. Plot every identified risk to reveal risk concentrations and produce a comprehensive, auditable risk register with clear severity thresholds, risk ownership, and treatment priority ranking.
Mitigation Strategy and Risk Treatment Plan
Map specific countermeasures to every risk above tolerance: risk reduction through technical or procedural controls, risk transfer, risk avoidance through architecture changes, or documented risk acceptance with management sign-off. Deliver a phased treatment plan with implementation timelines aligned to maintenance windows and operational constraints.
Report Preparation
Consolidate all findings into a structured final report including: detailed risk assessment with evidence, comprehensive risk register, configuration analysis results, vulnerability findings, executive summary for board-level review, and prioritized actionable recommendations. Conduct a formal readout session with both technical teams and leadership.
Implementation Support and Closure
Provide post-assessment support to help operationalize the risk treatment plan. Assist with remediation prioritization, vendor coordination for critical fixes, validation of implemented controls, and knowledge transfer to internal teams. Conduct a formal closure meeting to hand over all deliverables and establish a baseline for future assessments.
Service Deliverables
- Detailed risk assessment report with evidence-backed findings
- Comprehensive risk register with impact and likelihood ratings
- Network and device configuration analysis
- Vulnerability assessment findings with severity ratings
- Risk treatment plan with phased implementation roadmap
- Executive summary with prioritized recommendations
- Post-assessment implementation support
Frameworks We Align With
Industries Served
Start Your Risk Assessment Engagement
Get in touch to discuss your specific OT environment and how we can scope this engagement for your organization.