90-Day OT Security Roadmap: A Shared Language for Leadership and Field Teams
The core objective of a 90-day OT security roadmap is balancing leadership demand for quick wins with field-level operational reality. The first 30 days should focus on visibility: validating asset inventory, mapping access paths, scoring critical risks, and addressing urgent exposure points. In this phase, practical controls that deliver measurable risk reduction are more valuable than perfect but slow architectural designs.
Days 31-60 should move into architecture hardening. Review IT/OT segmentation rules, tighten remote access controls, enforce privileged account governance, and update backup-recovery workflows. Changes must be monitored daily for operational impact. If a control degrades production stability, the rollout should be adjusted, not abandoned. Phased implementation is what keeps security progress aligned with plant continuity.
Days 61-90 are focused on sustainability and governance. Tune SOC alert quality, refine incident response playbooks, and schedule recurring validation drills. Leadership reporting should include more than vulnerability closure counts; track response time, recurring alert rate, access violation trends, and recovery performance metrics. These indicators show true maturity better than one-dimensional compliance figures.
The success factor across all phases is shared language. When leadership, OT operations, and security teams use different risk definitions, projects lose speed and clarity. Define targets at the beginning of each phase and publish validation criteria at the end. By day 90, organizations gain stronger technical resilience and governance discipline, creating a reliable base for advanced security investments in the next cycle.
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