Richard Robinson/CEO Cynalytica Inc.
April 21, 2025
Understanding the Visibility Gap in Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity
For over a decade, cybersecurity investment has followed a predictable pattern, targeting the familiar territory of enterprise IT networks. Billions of dollars have been funneled into solutions designed to protect email systems, cloud applications, endpoints, and corporate databases. These environments are IP-based, software-defined, and increasingly cloud-native, making them the ideal targets for scalable, software-driven cybersecurity tools.
But critical infrastructure doesn’t operate like the modern office or data center
Electricity grids, water utilities, oil and gas pipelines, manufacturing plants, and transportation systems rely on industrial control systems (ICS) and operational technology (OT) that predate modern networking paradigms. These systems are often built on legacy analog and serial protocols, such as Modbus RTU, IEC-101, and 4–20mA current loops, and were never designed with cybersecurity in mind. As a result, they remain largely invisible and unprotected by conventional IT security tools.
This is the gap the market missed, and the gap Cynalytica addresses.
IT ≠ OT: A Critical Distinction Too Often Overlooked
One of the root causes of the security blind spot in critical infrastructure is the widespread failure to differentiate between IT and OT systems. While the two domains may appear to share network architectures, both may use Ethernet, switches, or even IP addresses, their functions, risk models, and operational priorities are fundamentally different.
In IT environments, the focus is on confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA), often in that order. In OT environments, the hierarchy is reversed: availability comes first, as uptime and physical process continuity are paramount. A brief system outage in a corporate IT system may result in lost productivity. In an OT environment, the same outage can cause equipment failure, environmental disasters, or threats to human life.
- The misapplication of IT security tools in OT environments (e.g., active network scans that can crash sensitive PLCs).
- Inadequate segmentation between IT and OT networks, allowing threat actors to move laterally from IT into OT environments, as seen in the Colonial Pipeline incident
- Uninformed risk assessments that ignore the unique constraints of OT assets
Without a proper understanding of OT-specific threats, organizations are flying blind in some of the most high-risk areas of their infrastructure.
Why Cynalytica Built a Different Solution
At Cynalytica, we recognized that no cybersecurity solution built solely for IP-based environments could address the unique challenges of OT systems. Our team saw an unmet need: to provide real-time visibility into analog and serial communications, along with IP, without introducing risk.
We built a platform from the ground up that is:
- Completely passive—we never transmit or inject data into control networks
- Protocol-agnostic—we monitor raw 4–20mA signals, RS-232/485, Modbus RTU, IEC-101 and more
- Fail-safe by design—our hardware is purpose-built to meet the reliability and safety demands of ICS environments
This means that security teams can finally gain granular insight into control system behavior without disrupting operations. In environments where uptime is non-negotiable, such as nuclear power plants, water utilities, and defense facilities, this approach is not just beneficial, it is essential.
The Market’s Turning Point
Until recently, many cybersecurity leaders viewed OT environments as too sensitive to monitor or too niche to prioritize. But high-profile attacks, shifting regulations, and evolving adversary tactics have changed that. Organizations are waking up to the reality that their most important systems, the ones that move oil, treat water, and generate electricity, are also the most vulnerable.
Strategic global partners have now recognized the critical importance of full-spectrum passive ICS monitoring. Cynalytica’s platform is now being deployed in some of the most secure and mission-critical environments in the world.
A New Cybersecurity Era: Visibility Without Risk
The next phase of cybersecurity will not be defined by better EDR or more AI-driven firewalls. It will be defined by our ability to see into the places we’ve never dared to look, the analog and serial control layers of critical infrastructure.
At Cynalytica, we believe that visibility is the foundation of security. Without it, incident response is guesswork, risk management is fiction, and operational assurance is impossible.
That’s why we built for what others missed.