Aug 7, 2026 · 40 min · 11 segments
In this episode of Cyber Uncut, Cyber Daily's Liam Garman is joined by Alex Nehmy, who explains why securing critical infrastructure requires a different approach to traditional IT security. Discover…
Alex NehmyGuest
Liam GarmanHost
It's a cool crew, and I've, I've been fortunate enough over the last, you know, two, three years to speak quite at length with your team right across the world, and I know they've done some fantastic, some fantastic work looking after OT and critical infrastructure right across Australia and our, and our allied nations and looking after some large, large, large, very important pieces of critical infrastructure in the United States as well.
And I think, Alex, it might be a good place to start because it's been quite a few months, I think, really, since we've dived into the world of OT, and I think that might have been a, a podcast that I did with some of your team in the US.
But for people that are listening to this podcast, let's say they're business leaders or they're focusing more on IT day to day, or they're cybersecurity champions in a, in a, in that IT facing role, when we say OT, operational technology, what are we actually describing and why has it, in recent months, recent years, become such a target?
So OT stands for operational technology, and really, operational technology are the systems that run the physical world, so they, you know, it's often referred to also interchangeably as critical infrastructure because these systems are critical.
They're electricity grids, they're water treatment plants, they're train networks, they're food processing.
When operational technology stops, pretty much the world stops and we have big issues on our hands.
It's really critical infrastructure, and because it's critical, threat actors are targeting it.
Um, there, there's no greater effect in the physical world than turning off an electricity grid or, you know, interfering with people's drinking water.
And, uh, you can see how impacting OT, you know, we're talking about the day to day lives of, of everyday people that, that can be impacted by OT breaches.
Looking at that, how does a threat to OT differ from most of the corporate breaches or, or breaches that we, we, that we hear about in the news every day? How do they differ?
So an IT breach, I mean, IT is information technology, so an IT breach, it affects data and it affects information.
And yes, they can have big impacts for businesses, financial impacts, reputational, et cetera, but operational technology moves the physical world, and when that breaks, people can get hurt and people can die, and there's no greater risk than, you know, someone going to work and not coming home safely.
And every industrial organization is super focused on safety as their number one non-negotiable focus.
Um, so if a threat actor interferes with operational technology, we can no longer rely on it moving and behaving in the ways that we would expect it to.
It's a cool crew, and I've, I've been fortunate enough over the last, you know, two, three years to speak quite at length with your team right across the world, and I know they've done some fantastic, some fantastic work looking after OT and critical infrastructure right across Australia and our, and our allied nations and looking after some large, large, large, very important pieces of critical infrastructure in the United States as well.
And I think, Alex, it might be a good place to start because it's been quite a few months, I think, really, since we've dived into the world of OT, and I think that might have been a, a podcast that I did with some of your team in the US.
But for people that are listening to this podcast, let's say they're business leaders or they're focusing more on IT day to day, or they're cybersecurity champions in a, in a, in that IT facing role, when we say OT, operational technology, what are we actually describing and why has it, in recent months, recent years, become such a target?
So OT stands for operational technology, and really, operational technology are the systems that run the physical world, so they, you know, it's often referred to also interchangeably as critical infrastructure because these systems are critical.
They're electricity grids, they're water treatment plants, they're train networks, they're food processing.
When operational technology stops, pretty much the world stops and we have big issues on our hands.
It's really critical infrastructure, and because it's critical, threat actors are targeting it.
Um, there, there's no greater effect in the physical world than turning off an electricity grid or, you know, interfering with people's drinking water.
And, uh, you can see how impacting OT, you know, we're talking about the day to day lives of, of everyday people that, that can be impacted by OT breaches.
Looking at that, how does a threat to OT differ from most of the corporate breaches or, or breaches that we, we, that we hear about in the news every day? How do they differ?
So an IT breach, I mean, IT is information technology, so an IT breach, it affects data and it affects information.
And yes, they can have big impacts for businesses, financial impacts, reputational, et cetera, but operational technology moves the physical world, and when that breaks, people can get hurt and people can die, and there's no greater risk than, you know, someone going to work and not coming home safely.
And every industrial organization is super focused on safety as their number one non-negotiable focus.
Um, so if a threat actor interferes with operational technology, we can no longer rely on it moving and behaving in the ways that we would expect it to.
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