Beyond Castle Walls: Operational Technology and Zero Trust
Nov 12, 2024
Throughout history, societies have protected their most valuable assets by building walls, fortresses, and moats. Whether it was a medieval castle or an ancient city-state, security meant keeping threats on the outside and creating barriers around the things that mattered most. We took these principles with us as we moved into the digital age, designing network security with firewalls, access controls, and gated perimeters to protect digital assets. Firewalls and network devices became our virtual walls, defining trusted and untrusted zones, and keeping the "bad actors" at the gate. For years, this perimeter-based approach was the primary line of defense in the world of cybersecurity, establishing a digital fortress around systems and data. But just as history has shown us that walls and borders can be breached, so too has modern cybersecurity taught us that no perimeter is foolproof. As organizations increasingly connect their IT systems to the wider internet and integrate the...