Cybersecurity for energy & critical infrastructure

OT security for organisations that cannot afford downtime.

Energy companies, grid operators, water utilities, data centres, and other critical providers have been on the radar of both cybercriminals and state actors for years. Outages directly impact delivery, safety, and trust.

OT/ICS & SCADAEnergy, water, transport & industryNIS2 & critical processes

> The reality: attacks on critical infrastructure are no longer theoretical

In OT and ICS environments, safety and availability are at least as important as security. At the same time, many environments deal with legacy systems, complex OT/IT connections, and suppliers with direct access. Recent Dutch and European threat assessments show the same pattern.

Attacks that initially targeted office IT are increasingly shifting towards OT/ICS environments. [source: ENISA, CSBN]
Attackers explicitly try to establish a position in critical infrastructure for later sabotage. [source: ENISA, NCSC]
The impact goes beyond downtime: outages of electricity, water, heating, or data centres affect all of society. [source: CSBN]

Concretely: where does it go wrong in practice?

OT networks that have grown organically, without current segmentation or asset inventory.
Remote access for suppliers via old VPNs, modems, or shared accounts, often without proper overview or logging.
SCADA, DCS, and PLC landscapes that were never designed with internet connectivity in mind.
IT/OT convergence (“let’s just connect it to central monitoring”) without clear separation and security controls.
Insufficient visibility into which PLCs, HMIs, and engineering stations are actually on the network.
Untested incident response playbooks for scenarios where OT actually goes down.

> Legislation for energy & critical infrastructure

Energy and infrastructure parties often fall under stricter frameworks than regular organisations. In addition to sector rules, European directives play a major role.

NIS2 / critical sectors

NIS2 (and national implementation such as the Cybersecurity Act) brings stricter requirements for providers of essential and important services, including energy, digital infrastructure, and certain water and transport companies:

Mandatory risk assessment and appropriate technical and organisational measures.
Incident reports within fixed deadlines to regulators.
Increased personal responsibility for executives.

Sector standards and frameworks

Many energy and infrastructure organisations use a mix of frameworks and standards, such as:

ISO 27001/27002 for information security management.
CIS Controls for practical technical measures.
OT/ICS-specific standards such as IEC 62443.

> How Neo Security helps energy & critical infrastructure

We look at your environment the way an attacker would: from outside in, from IT to OT, from suppliers to core processes. At the same time, we work with the reality of 24/7 operations and safety restrictions.

1. OT/IT inventory & risk analysis

We start with a factual basis:

Mapping assets in OT (SCADA, PLCs, HMI, engineering stations).
Connections between IT and OT.
External connections (suppliers, remote management, data centres).
Dependencies of critical processes.

Result: a clear risk analysis with priorities: which components are truly business-critical and where is the probability and impact greatest?

More about OT/SCADA security: OT security assessment.

2. OT security tests and attack simulations

We test the environment step by step without unnecessary disruption to production:

Technical penetration tests on OT-related systems, management layers, and gateways. More about pentests: pentest approach and offensive services
Scenarios where we examine how far we can move from IT to OT (pivoting, misconfiguration, identity abuse).
Validation whether segmentation, firewalls, and jump hosts actually do what they promise on paper.
Optionally a red team operation with OT focus: realistic attack campaign with clear rules of engagement. More about red teaming: red team operations

Goal: show what a real attacker could achieve – and which detections you are currently missing.

3. NIS2 & critical sector compliance & governance

Energy and infrastructure organisations must not only be technically resilient, but also be able to demonstrate this to regulators and stakeholders.

NIS2 gap analysis and compliance roadmap for critical sectors. More about governance: compliance & governance
Setting up a risk management framework (e.g., based on CIS Controls or ISO 27001, supplemented with OT-specific controls). See also CIS framework and ISO 27001.
Chain and supplier assessments: which third parties pose the greatest risk, contractually and technically?
Preparation for audits and reporting: ensuring your story holds up – technically and administratively.

4. 24/7 monitoring & incident response

When something does happen, you want to know quickly and handle it in a controlled manner. We connect energy and OT environments to:

Blue Team-as-a-Service / Managed SOC for 24/7 monitoring of suspicious activity in IT and (where possible) OT. More about SOC: managed SOC and Blue Team-as-a-Service.
Incident Response with clear SLAs and experience in vital environments. More about response: incident response

Together we create playbooks for scenarios such as partial OT outage, ransomware in IT with risk to OT, or compromise via a supplier.

> Why energy and infrastructure parties choose Neo Security

We know critical processes.
We primarily work for sectors where downtime is not an option: energy, industry, healthcare, government. We know how to do security without taking operations down.
Offense + compliance in one story.
We combine attacker thinking (pentest, red teaming, OT assessments) with NIS2 and critical sector governance. Not a standalone report, but input for ISMS, risk register, and board reporting.
Facts, not fear.
No FUD slides, but concrete findings, clear priorities, and clear steps: what needs to happen today, what can wait?
Engineers first.
We come from engineering, not from PowerPoint. We talk just as easily with OT operators and network administrators as with the CISO, management, and board of directors.

> Ready for an honest test of your critical infrastructure?

We usually start with a short intake: which processes are business-critical, which OT/IT connections exist, and which obligations already apply (NIS2, sector regulation)? From there we determine whether an OT/IT risk analysis, NIS2 gap analysis, or a targeted OT pentest/red team operation is the most logical first step.

More about OT security assessment

Our offensive power, your strongest defence – even when the lights must stay on.