Operational Technology

Securing ICS, SCADA & the Physical World

Operational Technology (OT) is the computing that runs the physical world — the power grid, water plants, refineries, factories, and pipelines. These industrial control systems (ICS) were built for decades of uptime and physical safety, not for the internet, and yet they are increasingly connected. Start with the foundations (the IT/OT divide, the Purdue model, PLCs) then go hands-on: force a Modbus coil, hijack an HMI, spoof a DNP3 command, pivot from IT to OT through the engineering workstation, and learn the lessons of Stuxnet, TRITON, and the Ukraine grid attacks — finishing with how real plants are segmented, monitored, and recovered.