OT Connectivity Governance: Why CISOs Must Require a Business Case for Every Connection

From a CISO standpoint, uncontrolled connectivity equals uncontrolled risk.

The NCSC guidance is explicit: every OT connection must be justified by a documented business case. This requirement establishes governance discipline and audit ability.

What CISOs Should Demand

Each connectivity request should define:

Operational necessity
Business value
Acceptable cyber and safety risk
Impact of compromise
External dependencies introduced
A named senior risk owner

This shifts accountability away from engineering teams and squarely into risk ownership structures.

The Legacy Asset Problem

Obsolete OT assets amplify risk because they:

Cannot be patched
Lack of authentication or encryption
Require compensating controls that rarely scale

From a risk perspective, legacy systems must be treated as untrusted by default.

Executive Insight

If leadership cannot articulate:

Why a connection exists
What happens when it fails
Who owns the risk

Then the connection represents unmanaged enterprise exposure.

Comments

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