The wake-up call no one wanted
Just after midnight on September 22, 2024, a suspected ransomware attack forced operators at the Arkansas City, Kansas, water-treatment plant to switch to manual controls, anxiously safeguarding drinking water for the town’s residents.
Downtime hurts more than you think
According to the ITIC 2024 Hourly Cost of Downtime Survey, over 90% of mid-size and large organisations now put the price of a single hour of outage above $300,000, with 41% saying the bill tops $1 million. For OT industries, such as energy, costs can go up to $2.48 million per hour. When a cyber incident can drain six figures before a morning coffee break, prevention clearly beats recovery.
Why training, not just tech, keeps the plant running
- Early threat spotting – Staff who know what an abnormal human-machine interface (HMI) screen looks like can isolate a rogue process long before malware reaches the production line.
- Fewer human-error openings – Phishing remains OT’s favourite attacker on-ramp; rehearsed teams click fewer bad links.
- Regulatory head-start – Standards such as IEC 62443 demand demonstrable cyber competence; fines for non-compliance often dwarf the cost of training.
Three quick wins
|
Quick win |
What it looks like |
The win |
|
Role-based micro-modules |
Deliver bite-sized, job-specific training. e.g. Modbus for SOC analysts, cyber awareness for OT Engineers. |
Builds practical, role-relevant cyber instincts. |
|
Table-top drills |
Simulate a cyber incident alert and map “who calls whom, who shuts what”. |
Prepares teams for real-world response. |
|
Visible leadership |
Get managers in the room with frontline staff during training. |
Makes security a shared responsibility. |
Bottom line
Tools catch packets; people catch trouble. Invest in your workforce’s OT-security skills today, and the next midnight alarm could become just another drill instead of headline news.
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Share your thoughts
Thoughts or questions? Drop them in the comments. Let’s keep the conversation (and the plant) running.
Immerser