This white paper is a practical guide to secure remote access (SRA) for operational technology (OT) environments. It is for OT, engineering and security teams that need to give employees, contractors and vendors remote access to industrial systems without exposing the OT network. It covers the changing OT risk landscape, the core building blocks of SRA, common implementation challenges, best practices and example scenarios in manufacturing, energy and utilities.
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What the White Paper Covers
- The evolving OT landscape: a larger attack surface from IT/OT connectivity, legacy systems without modern security, the impact of disruption on essential services, and dependence on third-party vendors.
- What SRA is: data encryption, multi-factor authentication (MFA), role-based access control (RBAC) and network segmentation.
- Implementation challenges: integrating with legacy infrastructure, avoiding operational downtime, meeting requirements such as NIST and ISO/IEC 27001, and limited visibility into OT systems.
- Best practices: zero trust, continuous monitoring, least privilege, encrypted sessions, segmentation, MFA, controlled vendor access, regular policy reviews and security assessments.
- Example scenarios: a manufacturing plant, an energy provider and a utility provider.
How Safous Helps
- Identity-based, application-level access: users reach only the approved asset, not the OT network.
- Continuous authentication and session monitoring.
- Real-time blocking of risky actions.
- Access requests and approvals for critical operations.
- Audit trails with session recordings, access logs and user history.
- Credential vaulting, so passwords are never shared with users.
- Fast deployment with no change management.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is secure remote access (SRA) in OT?
SRA lets authorized employees, contractors and vendors reach OT systems remotely under controls such as MFA, role-based access, encryption and segmentation, without opening the OT network to the outside.
Why is remote access harder to secure in OT than in IT?
OT environments often run legacy systems that cannot be changed, cannot tolerate downtime, face sector-specific regulations and have limited visibility, so typical IT remote access tools are not a good fit.
How is Safous different from a VPN for OT access?
A VPN connects a device to the network. Safous connects a verified identity to one approved asset, with approvals where needed and every session recorded for audit.
Who should read this white paper?
OT and ICS engineers, plant and site security leads, CISOs, and anyone responsible for managing third-party vendor access to industrial systems.
Learn more: OT and industrial secure remote access, third-party and vendor access and 8 ways legacy SRA tools fall short in OT environments.