OT Cybersecurity Spending Lagging Amid More Advanced, Prevalent Attacks

Budgets for bolstering operational technology (OT) cybersecurity necessary for defending industrial control systems (ICS) have been falling behind increasingly the growing volumes and sophistication of cyberattacks, SC Media reports.

Most security spending — which is usually not under the control of chief information security officers (CISOs) and chief security officers (CSOs) — has been allocated toward information technology, with fewer than 50% of execs having given at least a quarter of financial resources to critical infrastructure defense fortification, according to a report from the SANS Institute and OPSWAT.

"While cybersecurity budgets have increased, much of the investment remains focused only on traditional business support systems such as IT, leaving ICS/OT environments, the business itself, dangerously under-protected," said Dean Parsons, ICS defense principal consultant and CEO at the SANS Institute. "After all, in an ICS organization, the ICS is the business."