Operational Technology (OT) systems, especially Industrial Control Systems (ICS), are an increasingly attractive target for highly-sophisticate cyber actors around the world. A more worrying trend has developed with the increased connectivity between IT and ICS (IT-OT convergent). This creates a potential opportunity for adversaries who are now able to compromise IT systems connected to the Internet, secure their footholds, and move to the ICS to disrupt industrial processes if not enough attention directed to secure the IT-OT convergent endeavor.
The COVID-19 situation further challenged the convergent journey, just to name a few emerging challenges such as resources contention, supply chain cyber breaches, prevalent remote connections, etc are things seems to become the new normal. Leveraging Cloud Computing may be one of the strategies to help alleviate the challenges ahead.