Red Teaming for Reality: Human Blind Spots in OT Security

Ransomware attacks on industrial organizations surged 87% in 2024, with manufacturing bearing the brunt at 70% of all incidents. But here's what should keep facility managers awake at night: the weakest link isn't your aging SCADA system or outdated firmware. It's the well-meaning IT professional who thinks securing operational technology (OT) is just like protecting the corporate network.

Only 29% of organizations have adequate OT security expertise. Nearly three-quarters of industrial facilities are protected by teams that lack the specialized knowledge to defend environments where a misconfigured firewall rule can shut down a production line or worse. When IT staff migrate from protecting email servers to safeguarding systems that control physical processes, the skills gap becomes a security chasm.

This isn't about blaming IT professionals. It's about recognizing that OT environments demand a fundamentally different security approach, and that traditional penetration testing alone won't expose the human blind spots that attackers exploit.

The numbers paint a sobering picture. Half of all ICS/OT security professionals lack relevant certifications. Meanwhile, 62% of tech leaders say the skills gap impact is more apparent than it was a year ago. By 2026, IDC predicts 90% of organizations worldwide will feel the IT skills crisis, translating to $5.5 trillion in losses.

But certifications only tell part of the story. OT personnel often lack cybersecurity awareness, while IT professionals don't understand industrial processes. An IT team member might see a decades-old Windows system and immediately want to patch it, not realizing that update could brick a critical control system that can't be taken offline without stopping production.

This knowledge gap has real consequences. When ransomware groups doubled their attack tempo in the second half of 2024 (jumping from 34 to 68+ incidents per week), many organizations discovered their IT-centric defenses couldn't protect OT assets. A quarter of ransomware cases resulted in full OT site shutdowns, while 75% caused operational disruption.

Here's where many organizations go wrong: they treat OT security testing like IT security testing. They hire a firm to run a penetration test, get a list of vulnerabilities, patch what they can, and call it a day. But penetration testing only finds technical vulnerabilities in specific systems. It doesn't test whether your people will click that phishing link or if your incident response team can actually detect and contain a lateral movement attack from IT to OT networks.

Red team assessments take a fundamentally different approach. They evaluate people, processes, AND technology. A red team simulates real adversary tactics to test detection, response, and recovery capabilities, using frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK for ICS to map scenarios to real-world threats.

The threat landscape demands this comprehensive approach. Eighty ransomware groups now target OT/ICS environments (up from 50 in 2023), and 1,693 industrial organizations had sensitive operational data exposed on leak sites last year.

What separates organizations that avoided paying ransom from those that didn't? According to incident response data, it came down to basics: strict IT/OT network segmentation and proper remote access controls. But knowing you need network segmentation is different from knowing if it actually works when under attack.

When 56% of organizations experienced lateral movement from IT to OT networks, it exposed that their segmentation existed on paper but failed in practice. When 78% showed blind spots in OT security monitoring, their detection capabilities couldn't identify threats even if they wanted to respond.

Red team assessments for industrial environments provide in-depth reports covering the entire attack lifecycle. You discover that an attacker can use social engineering to gain initial access, move laterally through poorly segmented networks, and reach critical control systems within hours. You find out if your 24/7 SOC actually detects the intrusion and whether your incident response plan survives contact with a real scenario.

Only 34% of organizations prepare for cyber incidents using range environments with ICS/OT-specific tools. The costs of getting this wrong are measured in production downtime, safety incidents, and average breach costs of $2.8 million per incident. But the real risk is operational impact: 70% of ICS vulnerabilities sit deep within networks where they can cause loss of view and loss of control. When you can't see what's happening or can't control your processes, you're not just dealing with a cybersecurity incident. You're dealing with a potential safety crisis.

The path forward requires specialized expertise and testing methodologies that reflect how attackers actually operate against industrial environments.

PhishCloud's red team assessments are specifically designed to expose the human and organizational blind spots that traditional penetration testing misses in OT environments. Founded by a former government red team leader with over 20 years of ICS/OT incident response experience, PhishCloud understands the unique challenges facing industrial operations.

Unlike traditional penetration testing that focuses solely on technical vulnerabilities, PhishCloud's assessments evaluate your entire security posture. Using sophisticated tactics including custom phishing campaigns, social engineering, and real-world attack simulations, they test whether your team can actually detect and respond to threats targeting both IT and OT systems.

PhishCloud's Cyber Fusion Center strategies specifically address the skills gap and siloed operations that leave 71% of industrial environments vulnerable. This consulting approach helps organizations integrate their defensive systems to achieve unified visibility across attack vectors, with intelligent correlation that maps threats to what matters in industrial settings: uptime, safety, compliance, and revenue risk.

When 89% of successful industrial breaches require access across both IT and OT systems, PhishCloud's Cyber Fusion Center approach helps organizations implement security playbooks specifically designed for OT environments, enabling faster coordinated response between teams that traditionally don't speak the same language.

PhishCloud's assessments align with critical industrial frameworks including NERC CIP and IEC 62443, providing compliance-ready documentation while delivering the real-world testing that regulations alone can't deliver. The approach works with your existing security tools, ensuring you can strengthen your security posture without disrupting operations.

For facility managers and executives, the question isn't whether you can afford comprehensive red team assessments like PhishCloud's. With ransomware attacks nearly doubling and 89% of organizations experiencing OT intrusions in the past two years, the question is whether you can afford to operate without knowing your real security posture.

Penetration testing tells you about your technical vulnerabilities. Red team assessments reveal whether your organization can actually defend against determined adversaries targeting the systems that run your operations. The 87% surge in attacks isn't slowing down. The only question is whether you'll discover your blind spots through a controlled assessment or through an actual ransomware incident.

Ready to test your real security posture? PhishCloud's red team assessments provide comprehensive evaluation combining technical testing with human-layer protection and Cyber Fusion Center strategies that bridge the IT/OT divide.