OT Cybersecurity Basics Audit

Quickly screen your plant for the most common OT cyber risks and turn walkdown observations into clear, prioritized next steps your team can act on.

Why this matters

Operational technology (OT) powers production lines, utilities, and critical equipment. Simple weaknesses—flat network zones, default credentials, unmanaged remote access, or untracked devices—can cause production outages, product quality issues, supply delays, or safety incidents. This short audit helps you find obvious exposures before they become incidents that stop the line.

What this audit helps you do

Use the audit to:

• Confirm whether OT and IT are properly segmented and whether control networks have unnecessary paths to business or public networks.
• Check device hygiene: default passwords, firmware/patch status, unnecessary services, and physical access controls.
• Verify remote access controls and third‑party connectivity are documented and limited to approved channels.
• Quickly establish whether an up‑to‑date asset inventory and basic monitoring/alerting are in place.
• Produce a short, prioritized remediation list you can hand to maintenance, engineering, or a security team.

Who benefits

Plant managers, production supervisors, maintenance leads, reliability engineers, OT technicians, IT/OT integrators, and small or mid‑sized manufacturers who want a practical, low‑friction way to surface obvious OT risks and agree next steps with stakeholders.

How to use it in practice

Run the checklist during a site walkdown, a tabletop review with operations and IT, or as an intake step before connecting new IIoT or MES/SCADA integrations. Record answers and observations, tag issues by impact and urgency, and assign ownership. If you use the platform copy feature, you can tailor questions for your equipment, save responses, and track remediation progress over time.

Important safety and scope notes

Do not perform intrusive or destructive tests on production controllers or networks without formal change control. This audit is a screening tool to find obvious gaps—not a replacement for controlled security assessments, compliance audits, or engineering change processes. Critical remediation (firmware upgrades, network reconfiguration, vendor patching) should be planned and executed with appropriate maintenance windows and vendor/engineering oversight.