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Reduce the risk by applying strong operational-technology (OT) security fundamentals: prioritize systems by their potential physical and service impact, restrict and segment connectivity, control third-party and emergency access, monitor data flows, and plan how to isolate affected systems without compromising safety. Include AI-assisted malware and automated social engineering in threat exercises, but treat them as plausible scenarios—not as evidence that AI has measurably increased attack success against critical infrastructure.
What AI-assisted attacks mean for critical infrastructure
Critical infrastructure relies on operational technology: programmable systems that monitor or control physical processes. That includes industrial control, water and wastewater, transportation, building systems, and other technology whose failure or misuse could affect people, essential services, or the environment. OT security has to account for those consequences as well as performance, reliability, and safety requirements.
AI may help an attacker scale or adapt familiar techniques. The ENISA Advisory Group’s June 2025 opinion paper recommends that organizations threat-model scenarios such as AI-powered malware and automated social engineering, maintain awareness of observed cases, and develop detection, response, and recovery guidance. That is a reason to prepare, not proof of a measured increase in critical-infrastructure incidents or attack effectiveness. The sources discussed here provide no reliable statistic for AI’s incremental effect or for the risk reduction achieved by any one safeguard.
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The practical approach is therefore to strengthen controls that reduce unauthorized access and limit the consequences of compromise, while adding plausible AI-enabled scenarios to existing risk management. The safeguards should fit the site’s processes, safe-state requirements, uptime needs, legacy equipment, and applicable sector rules.
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Prioritize safeguards by operational consequence
Start with the systems and connections whose compromise could cause the greatest harm—not with a blanket assumption that every OT asset presents the same risk. The UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) advises considering a device or process’s role and impact, the availability of fail-safe or redundant systems, implementation time and funding, and current threat activity.
Build a consequence-focused inventory
Identify the assets that control or support safety-critical processes, essential services, and environmental protections. Map the connections those assets depend on, including links between OT network segments and any remote or third-party access paths. For each high-impact system, establish what a disruption or unauthorized command could mean for the process and what conditions are required to keep it safe.
Use that picture to rank work. A low-cost fix is not automatically the most urgent, and a difficult legacy system should not disappear from the plan simply because it is hard to replace. If an asset cannot be patched or upgraded promptly, a boundary control may be a more practical near-term safeguard. Revisit priorities as threats, operations, and available protections change.
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Reduce reachable OT attack surface
Harden the boundaries around OT and expose only the services and ports the operation actually requires. Use segmentation or segregation appropriate to the site, and design connectivity so that access to one system does not automatically grant access to others. The NCSC’s OT connectivity principles discuss hardening boundary assets and considering modern, modular boundary assets and Layer 7 inspection firewalls. These are possible approaches, not universal product prescriptions.
Legacy equipment may be difficult to update or replace, so protections sometimes need to sit at the network boundary rather than on the endpoint. An OT boundary security appliance can be part of that design, but the right approach depends on the site’s topology, the equipment’s support lifecycle, sector requirements, and safety constraints. Avoid making a change to a live control path without understanding its operational effect.
Check that segmentation works in practice
- Document which systems need to communicate, in which direction, and for what operational purpose.
- Restrict routes, services, and ports to those requirements rather than allowing broad connectivity by default.
- Review boundary rules and connections for unnecessary access, including paths introduced for maintenance or temporary projects.
- Validate the resulting data flows through monitoring and logging, rather than assuming that a configured boundary is functioning as intended.
Constrain third-party and remote access
Remote access can create a route into operational networks, so third-party connectivity should meet the operator’s security expectations. Make access limited to the systems and services needed for the work, and plan how to revoke or restrict a vendor path if it becomes unsafe. The central design question is not simply whether a connection is authorized; it is whether the operator can control its scope and respond quickly if circumstances change.
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Just-in-time access is one example of a way to make a third-party path temporary and revocable while keeping other approved connections active. The exact method must fit operational needs. Establish who can approve access, how its scope is determined, and how the operator will disable it during an incident. Do not let an emergency or maintenance connection become an undocumented permanent route.
Monitor connections and data flows
Logging and continuous monitoring help operators verify that segmentation policies are working and notice early signs of compromise or misconfiguration. NCSC’s Principle 7 says that continuous monitoring of data flows within and between network segments is crucial for those purposes. Monitoring should cover the connections that matter to the process, not only activity at the perimeter.
OT environments can have repetitive patterns, which may make unusual activity worth investigating. Anomaly detection can help surface deviations, but it is not a substitute for technical controls that disable or block unused command sets, services, or ports. A detection alert is useful only as part of a response that can distinguish an operational change from suspicious activity and take appropriate action without creating a safety problem.
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Make monitoring useful during an incident
- Record relevant connections across and between segments so the operator can compare observed flows with the intended design.
- Know which teams review alerts and how they escalate a suspected compromise that may affect physical processes.
- Consider what telemetry and logging remain available if a network path or site is isolated.
- Use monitoring findings to identify unexpected routes or configuration changes and correct them through the site’s approved change process.
Make emergency access and isolation deliberate
Break-glass access bypasses typical security controls for a safety incident. NCSC says it is intended only for emergencies, not as a standard remote-access method, and that its use should trigger the highest-criticality security operations center alarm. Define the conditions for invoking it, who is authorized, how its use is detected, and how access is returned to normal controls afterward.
Prepare an isolation plan before an incident; choosing how to disconnect systems under pressure can create additional operational risk. NCSC describes several patterns, from disconnecting an entire site to isolating a particular application or service. In some designs, trusted hardware-enforced one-way telemetry can remain available while other traffic is isolated. The correct choice depends on which connections must be stopped, what information operators still need, and what the process requires to remain safe.
Choose an isolation pattern against the process
| Pattern | Connectivity affected | Potential operational trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Site disconnection | External connections to the site are cut. | Broadly limits connectivity, but may also remove communications or visibility needed for safe operations. |
| Application- or service-specific isolation | A selected service or path is restricted while other approved connections may remain. | Can be more targeted, but depends on knowing which connection is compromised and how the remaining paths interact. |
| Trusted one-way telemetry during isolation | Selected information can continue to flow in one direction while other traffic is isolated. | May preserve visibility without maintaining a bidirectional path; the design must ensure the remaining flow is genuinely one-way and trusted. |
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Before relying on an isolation procedure, rehearse its implications for safety, continuity, and visibility. Confirm which trusted communications remain, which are cut, who can authorize the action, and how the site will restore normal connectivity. The goal is not simply to disconnect as much as possible; it is to contain risk while preserving the conditions needed to operate safely.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Include AI scenarios in governance and incident preparation
Use threat modeling to ask how AI could plausibly change familiar attack paths at the site. ENISA’s June 2025 examples include AI-powered malware and automated social engineering. An exercise can consider how an attacker might use such techniques to target credentials, exploit an existing remote-access route, or make malicious activity harder to recognize. Those are scenarios to evaluate against actual controls, not claims that such an attack has occurred at a particular facility.
Prepare detection, response, and recovery procedures around the ways the site could be affected. Include the people who operate the process as well as cybersecurity responders, since the safest technical response depends on process context. Monitor observed cases and update scenarios when credible information changes the threat picture. Do not infer an attack is AI-enabled merely because it is sophisticated, or assume AI use by itself proves greater impact.
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NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF) 1.0, released January 26, 2023, is voluntary and intended to incorporate trustworthiness considerations into the design, development, use, and evaluation of AI. NIST announced a concept note on April 7, 2026, for a profile on trustworthy AI in critical infrastructure. Neither the framework nor the concept note establishes a universal binding requirement for infrastructure operators.
Use current OT guidance without treating a draft as final
NIST published the initial public draft of SP 800-82 Rev. 4, Guide to Operational Technology (OT) Security, on September 21, 2026. NIST describes it as guidance for securing OT while addressing unique performance, reliability, and safety requirements. The draft aligns safeguards and countermeasures with CSF 2.0 and expands guidance on asset management, monitoring and detection, and architecture for system management functions and zero trust. Its comment period runs through November 30, 2026, so it is a draft rather than a final revision.
SP 800-82 Rev. 3, published in September 2023, remains a prior reference while operators account for the new draft and sector-specific requirements. NIST’s OT publications catalogue also lists a June 17, 2026 OT Backup Quick Start Guide and a June 24, 2026 water and wastewater OT remote-access architecture publication as implementation references. These publications can inform follow-up work, but a guide or architecture example does not replace site-specific safety analysis or applicable regulation.
Quick Recap
Turn the safeguards into an operator’s action plan
- Identify high-consequence assets and paths. Map the OT systems, processes, and connections that could affect safety, essential services, or the environment. Include fail-safe and redundant capabilities in the priority assessment.
- Restrict connectivity. Compare actual routes, services, and ports with operational requirements. Remove unnecessary exposure and use boundaries and segmentation that reflect the site’s architecture and legacy constraints.
- Control remote and third-party access. Set expectations for external connections, limit their scope, and establish a way to revoke or restrict them during an incident. Keep emergency access exceptional and detectable.
- Validate and monitor data flows. Log relevant connections within and between segments. Investigate deviations and misconfigurations, while retaining preventive controls against unused services and commands.
- Test isolation choices. Decide which site, service, or connection could be isolated, what trusted telemetry might remain, and what the action means for safe operations and continuity.
- Exercise AI-enabled scenarios and recovery. Include plausible malicious-AI and social-engineering scenarios in risk exercises, then practice detection, response, and recovery with the teams responsible for both cyber defense and operations.
- Reassess against changing guidance and obligations. Track the status of NIST’s Rev. 4 draft, relevant final guidance, sector requirements, and changes in the site’s threat and operational context.
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