"Organizations Are Placing OT Cybersecurity Responsibility on CISOs"

According to Fortinet, protecting Operational Technology (OT) systems is more important than ever as more organizations connect their OT environments to the Internet. While the convergence of Information Technology (IT) and OT has numerous advantages, it is presented with challenges by sophisticated and destructive cyber threats. Although the percentage of organizations that did not experience a cybersecurity breach increased significantly year-over-year from 6 percent in 2022 to 25 percent in 2023, there is still space for improvement. Over the past year, three-fourths of OT organizations reported at least one intrusion. Malware intrusions (56 percent) and phishing (49 percent) remained the most commonly reported types of incidents, and nearly one-third of respondents reported being victims of ransomware attacks. In addition, 13 percent of respondents rated their organization's OT security posture as "highly mature" in 2023, down from 21 percent in 2022. This suggests that OT professionals are becoming more aware of their organizations' cybersecurity capabilities and are using more effective self-assessment tools. Thirty-two percent of respondents reported that IT and OT systems were impacted by a cyberattack, up from 21 percent the previous year. In the next 12 months, 95 percent of organizations plan to assign OT cybersecurity responsibility to a CISO rather than an operations executive or team. This article continues to discuss key findings from the Fortinet 2023 State of Operational Technology and Cybersecurity Report. 

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