Cyberattacks on operational technology (OT), including critical infrastructure, are increasing as systems become more interconnected. For instance, a 2025 OT / ICS report found ransomware attacks surged 87% over the previous year. Such threats underscore the need for modern OT security that defends key systems, but without slowing down operations.
Common OT security risks include:
BeyondTrust's OT security solutions enable organizations to secure operational technology, including industrial networks and critical infrastructure, without disrupting productivity, compromising safety, or risking non-compliance.
Gain visibility and control over OT remote access, including vendor access
Onboard and manage all privileged identities, accounts, and credentials (passwords, SSH keys, secrets, etc.) for humans and machines
Enforce least privilege over access, endpoints, and sessions, including supporting a just-in-time (JIT) access model across cyber-physical systems
Enable network segmentation and micro segmentation to limit lateral movement risk
Implement OT-specific security best practices for vendor access, including credential management, least privilege, and session management
BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access enables organizations to secure industrial networks, while allowing the use of local tools to maintain user workflows. Our solution provides identity-secure, least-privilege remote access to simplify deployments, ensure maximum scalability, and empower remote operators and vendors to be productive. Connect to any device via the GUI or protocol—from anywhere.
The BeyondTrust product is purpose-built to secure OT environments, and provides flexible protocol / UDP tunneling support and enables peer path optimization. It secures access to custom, non-routable, and legacy systems without requiring broad network exposure.
Privileged Remote Access secures OT systems by:
Enforcing the principle of least privilege for remote access sessions
Implementing a JIT access model to drastically limit access and threat windows
Treating managed devices with the same level of trust as an unmanaged device – which is zero
Providing application access independent of network access
Recording all activities performed using remote access and disabling functionality such as copy/paste
Enabling API security to protect the integrity of data being sent from IoT devices to back-end systems
Enforcing 2FA and per-session MFA
Encrypting all communications between the user and the remote systems using TLS 1.3.
Applying the granularity of Privileged Remote Access to achieve Zero Trust objectives ensures all access is appropriate, managed, and documented, regardless of how the perimeter has been redefined.
"Our use case (with BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access) only touches the tip of the iceberg of what we can be doing…We've been searching for a long time for a partner that could help us with different types of issues we have in the OT environment, and BeyondTrust is it for us."
—VP of Industrial Cyber and Digital Security, Global Industrial Automation Company
“BeyondTrust was among those topping the Gartner rankings and validated all of our use cases. While other PAM vendors could also check some boxes, BeyondTrust’s Privileged Remote Access solution also offers the benefit of being extremely simple to use and deploy.”
—Benjamin Serre, Global CTO, MANE
Replacing your corporate VPN with Privileged Remote Access enables operators, suppliers, or third-party vendors to securely access OT environments, eliminate remote access blind spots, and reduce the attack surface, while driving productivity gains. Privileged Remote Access Network Tunnels can also be leveraged as a Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) solution to secure OT environments.
With Privileged Remote Access, maintain logical and physical network separation for OT remote access, in compliance with the Purdue Model.
BeyondTrust Password Safe® is the most comprehensive enterprise password management solution and can ensure all accounts and credentials associated with any privileged access are onboarded and secured. The product's comprehensive API unlocks high levels of automation and efficiency, while helping reduce OT risks. With Password Safe, benefit from:
Continuous discovery, onboarding, and management of passwords, secrets, and SSH keys
Credential injection into sessions, masking them from end users
Credential vaulting and rotating for OT devices
Removal of standing privileges
Support extended to legacy platforms and non-human accounts (app2app, services, databases etc.)
Break-glass access to credentials in case of unexpected solution downtime
“[Password Safe] now provides comprehensive identity security capabilities across the company. Security has been further strengthened by bifurcating user access rights. This means that if access to one application is compromised, it does not allow an attacker to gain access to other applications. The result is higher resilience and greater protection of assets.”
—Mateen Sayyed, Regional Head of Identity & Access Management, Ninja Van Group
BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management helps you quickly harden OT security, while maintaining user productivity and operations uptime. Protect endpoints across Windows, macOS, Unix, and Linux systems, as well as non-traditional endpoints, such as network devices, IoT / IIoT, ICS systems, virtual machines, and other OT systems and devices.
Lock down your environment by removing admin rights across workstations and servers and enforcing a strict allow list for supported terminals
Eliminate standing privileges and implement the principle of least privilege and a just-in-time access model across cyber-physical systems
Prevent accidental misconfigurations and other errors
"BeyondTrust provides a powerful platform that allows us to streamline and standardize application control and privileged management across our entire organization. Our people are smarter and better protected, and that's great news for our business."
—Dan Bartlett, Senior Consultant, Ramboll
Use this assessment to identify potential security risks across your OT environment, and the appropriate security controls you should have in place to protect ICS / SCADA / OT systems and enable compliance.
