Why do IT-led security initiatives often fail in OT environments?

Name: Building Effective IT-OT Security Partnerships
Uploaded: 2026-05-06T14:54:10-04:00
Duration: 2 min 55 s
Description: TL;DR Successful IT-OT security partnerships require early engagement with local site engineers rather than top-down corporate mandates that create friction and resistance. Security programs should involve OT engineers from each site to provide feedbac...

They typically fail when IT teams arrive with corporate mandates without understanding the operational complexity of OT systems or engaging local engineers early in the process. OT environments require careful coordination because they control critical operational systems, and changes can impact safety and production. Without buy-in from site personnel who understand these constraints, security initiatives face resistance and implementation challenges.

Building Effective IT-OT Security Partnerships

Claroty

05/06/2026

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Transcript

friction point I see a lot. I was lucky enough in the facilities I worked at that we had a pretty good relationship starting out. You know, our engineering teams were able to work with our IT teams very well. I think it was driven a lot by the OT side. So we were able to kind of pull in the IT guys for expertise and to help us understand the networking and the security stuff more. And then we slowly built up from there and it was able to, we had a really fruitful relationship. It was a really good thing. What I've seen fail a lot of times is where you see like a corporate mandate. I see this a lot in my current job and like when I was at Schender Electric is you have a corporate mandate. Your IT team shows up on site and they say, we're going to go do security. And then they run into the wall of, you know, the OT guys saying, what are you doing? You can't touch my equipment. It's my site. I'm not going to work with you. And I think a lot of that stems from a misunderstanding of the amount of effort and work that it takes to do stuff on the OT side. It's not that simple. These are operational systems. We need to have the buy-in from the local folks to do that sort of thing. And so we really want to get them involved early. The teams that I've seen have the most success do that, right? They bring in folks ideally from each site if they can, so that they can have local engineers not only give them feedback, but then turn around and sell the project back to the local folks, right? There's a lot of benefit that can come from these types of security programs. I've talked before about how it can give your OT guys an updated inventory that can tell them when changes are coming to their system. They don't have to go walk everything down to figure out where devices are, right? All these sort of things can benefit your OT engineers. And so having work like that, I think, can be very helpful. Also, ultimately, you know, security has a goal. We're trying to help protect the safety and operation of these systems, and that's a goal everybody shares, right? Your entire company cares a lot about that. And so that's a thing that's a really strong shared mission that you can have between your IT and your OT folks. So those are things that I've seen work really, really well. And again, the most important thing that I think, you know, the most important advice I can have is to have these teams work together early and don't, you know, don't just add them on as an afterthought, because that ultimately leads to friction when you start trying to do work on site or do things like that.

TL;DR

Successful IT-OT security partnerships require early engagement with local site engineers rather than top-down corporate mandates that create friction and resistance.
Security programs should involve OT engineers from each site to provide feedback and advocate for initiatives, turning them into internal champions rather than obstacles.
Modern security tools deliver operational benefits to OT teams including automated inventory management and change detection, eliminating time-consuming manual processes and providing real-time visibility into system changes.

Summary

In this Ask an OT Engineer segment, Gary Kneeland addresses the common friction point between operational technology (OT) and IT teams when implementing security programs. Drawing from his experience in industrial facilities and at Schneider Electric, Kneeland emphasizes that successful IT-OT collaboration requires early engagement and local buy-in rather than top-down corporate mandates. He explains that OT environments are complex operational systems where changes require careful coordination and understanding of site-specific constraints. The most effective security programs involve local engineers from each site who can provide feedback and advocate for initiatives within their facilities. Kneeland highlights that security tools can deliver tangible operational benefits to OT teams, including automated inventory management and change detection, which eliminates manual walkthroughs. By framing security as a shared mission to protect safety and operations, organizations can build productive partnerships that serve both IT security objectives and OT operational needs.

Chapters

0:00 - IT-OT Relationship Challenges
0:45 - Why Corporate Mandates Fail
1:29 - Successful Engagement Strategies
2:08 - Shared Security Mission

Key Quotes

0:45 "What I've seen fail a lot of times is where you see like a corporate mandate. Your IT team shows up on site and they say, we're going to go do security. And then they run into the wall of, you know, the OT guys saying, what are you doing? You can't touch my equipment."
1:32 "The teams that I've seen have the most success do that, right? They bring in folks ideally from each site if they can, so that they can have local engineers not only give them feedback, but then turn around and sell the project back to the local folks."
2:10 "Security has a goal. We're trying to help protect the safety and operation of these systems, and that's a goal everybody shares, right? Your entire company cares a lot about that."

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