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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchTo close the operational security gap, CIOs should focus on three things: understand how cyber incidents could disrupt physical operations, prioritize exposures by their consequences for essential processes, and establish shared security and recovery practices across IT and operations. In operational technology (OT) and cyber-physical systems (CPS), the stakes can include more than data loss or unavailable IT services: they can reach production, patient care, safety, and facilities.
Why operational security is a business-resilience issue
OT and CPS connect digital systems to physical processes. A cyber incident affecting these environments could cause downtime, create a safety hazard, or prevent a process from running as expected. The consequences depend on the setting: a disruption in manufacturing, healthcare, or building facilities will not look the same, so leaders need to understand what each system supports.
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That executive framing comes from Sean Tufts, Claroty’s Field CTO, in a sponsored CIO BrandPost article published October 6, 2026. Tufts writes: “As more business-critical systems move online, CIOs need to understand what a cyber incident could disrupt, not just which assets are vulnerable.”
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Claroty’s October 6, 2026 announcement describes a global survey it commissioned with Sapio Research. It covered 2,000 full-time business and technology leaders across 16 industries and more than 40 countries. Respondents were involved in technology purchasing or implementation as decision-makers, members of decision-making teams, or influencers. The figures below are vendor-commissioned survey results, not independently verified prevalence estimates for all organizations.
Priority 1: Understand what an incident could interrupt
Start with the operational consequence, not the security tool or vulnerability list. For each connected system, establish which process it supports, who owns it, what it depends on, and what would happen if it became unavailable or behaved unexpectedly. This gives CIOs and operations leaders a shared way to discuss risk in terms of service continuity, production, patient care, facilities, and safety.
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Claroty’s survey announcement says 58% of respondents reported that their organization had experienced a cyberattack affecting operational environments in the prior 12 months. Respondents reported an average of three days of operational downtime and an average financial loss of $1.04 million for an incident affecting operations. These are survey-reported averages and responses for the stated population and period, not forecasts or causal findings for a particular organization.
Safety is part of the consequence picture: 40% of respondents selected safety incidents or hazards among the impacts of operational incidents. The result does not mean that 40% of all organizations experienced a safety event; it describes responses in Claroty’s commissioned survey.
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Build a process-centered asset picture
- Inventory connected operational assets and identify their owners.
- Record the processes and services each asset supports, along with its dependencies and communication paths.
- Map who can access each system, including internal users and third parties.
- Identify the operational effects of loss, malfunction, or unauthorized access so response plans can reflect the real process at risk.
Priority 2: Prioritize exposures by operational impact
A vulnerability count is not a business-risk ranking. An exposure matters in context: what the asset does, how critical the supported process is, what it connects to, and who can reach it. Correlate vulnerability information with asset criticality and communication paths to identify which issues could affect essential operations.
Use that context to decide what to address first and how. Reduce unnecessary exposure, but account for legacy protocols, long system lifecycles, and maintenance windows. Patching or changing an operational system immediately may itself disrupt the process it supports, so remediation needs to fit operational constraints.
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Use a consistent prioritization sequence
- Identify the asset and owner. Confirm what the system is and who is responsible for its operation.
- Establish its role and dependencies. Connect the asset to the processes, services, and other systems it supports.
- Understand exposure. Review vulnerabilities alongside communication paths and internal or third-party access.
- Assess plausible operational consequences. Consider interruption, unsafe conditions, or inability to run a process as expected.
- Choose a proportionate response. Reduce exposure and schedule changes in coordination with operations, especially where maintenance windows or system lifecycles constrain action.
Priority 3: Bridge IT and operational governance
IT, security, and operations need a shared view of assets, exposures, accountability, and recovery. This is a working relationship, not simply a transfer of ownership to IT: operational teams understand process requirements, while security and IT bring expertise in managing digital access and exposure.
Claroty’s survey announcement says 39% of respondents identified CIOs or IT organizations as primarily accountable for CPS security. The sponsored CIO article’s account of the survey says only 16% described IT and operational security governance as fully integrated. Together, these figures point to an executive coordination challenge; they do not establish a single governance model as right for every organization.
Manage third-party access as a critical connection
Vendors may need remote access to maintain or support operational systems, but that access should be treated as a managed connection into a critical environment. Claroty’s announcement reports that 75% of respondents had at least one operational incident related to third-party access. The sponsored CIO article says 49% had partial or no monitoring of third-party connections. These are separate survey findings, and neither should be read as proof that third-party access caused every incident reported.
Set a shared process for authorizing and monitoring vendor connections, and review whether access is necessary for the work being done. The survey figures make third-party access a practical governance priority, while the exact controls should reflect each organization’s systems and operating needs.
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Include OT and CPS in continuity and recovery planning
Continuity and recovery plans should cover the operational systems that keep physical processes running. IT, security, and operations should align on responsibilities for incident response and recovery, with plans grounded in system dependencies and the consequences of disruption. This helps prevent a recovery approach designed only around conventional IT services from missing operational requirements.
Quick Recap
How CIOs can assess an OT security approach
The sponsored article and Claroty’s survey announcement do not provide comparative product testing or tested vendor recommendations. For a vendor-neutral evaluation, CIOs can compare approaches against the organization’s needs in these areas:
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors- Asset and process visibility: Can the approach help teams identify connected assets, ownership, dependencies, and the processes they support?
- Exposure prioritization: Can teams relate vulnerabilities and communication paths to operational criticality?
- Third-party access: Can the organization govern and monitor the remote connections required for operational support?
- Deployment model: Does the deployment fit the environment and its operational constraints?
- Integration with existing practices: Can IT, security, and operations use the approach within their current governance and response processes?
- Implementation risk: What operational disruption could arise from deploying or changing the controls?
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