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Detection

Passive OT Monitoring

Achieve visibility of OT communications without introducing operational risk.

Defensive guide

Why should I care?

Active probing can disrupt fragile devices; passive collection avoids touching the process.

How to implement it

  • Use network TAPs where possible; SPAN/mirror where TAPs are impractical
  • Place sensors at zone boundaries and inside high-consequence zones
  • Baseline assets, peers and protocol behaviour before writing detections
  • Forward alerts to the SOC with OT context attached

What good looks like

  • Coverage at every conduit
  • Baselines maintained as the plant changes
  • Alerts routed to people who understand the process

Common failure modes

  • Sensors deployed with no baseline or tuning
  • Alerting only IT staff with no process context

How to verify it

  • Confirm a known device change appears in the monitoring data