OT Cybersecurity at the Core of Smart Manufacturing
July 21, 2026
By Tony Baker, Chief Product Security Officer, Rockwell Automation
Manufacturers are operating in a more connected environment than ever before. That connectivity has driven gains in efficiency and visibility, but it has also introduced new risks. The 11th Annual State of Smart Manufacturing Report lays this out clearly: 36 percent of respondents cite risk reduction as a top outcome of digital transformation, and nearly half (46 percent) report experiencing a cyber incident in the past year.
The scale of the challenge is bigger than individual incidents, though. Enterprises are now more integrated, digital and complex. Cybersecurity has become a required part of how manufacturers maintain performance, help protect assets and keep operations running.
As organizations expand connected systems, they also expand their exposure. Managing that complexity requires an approach that treats cybersecurity as an operational capability, not just a technical function.
A Partnered Approach to Industrial Cybersecurity
Manufacturers don’t need to manage this complexity alone. They rely on partners who understand how production environments operate and what is at stake when systems are impacted.
Rockwell Automation takes a programmatic approach to OT cybersecurity built around the unique needs of industrial operations. Through the SecureOT solution suite, we provide a vendor-neutral approach designed to work across existing infrastructure and equipment. The goal is not to replace what manufacturers already have, but to integrate and strengthen it.
This approach spans the full lifecycle of industrial cybersecurity, including:
- Strategic advisory and risk assessment
- Industrial networking and infrastructure
- Asset inventory and lifecycle management
- Vulnerability and risk management
- Managed detection and response
- Incident response and recovery
Built on decades of cybersecurity expertise but grounded in over 100 years of industrial automation and manufacturing development, we apply practical risk management practices and manage the complexity of OT environments within modern operations. We do this across cybersecurity as a foundation, but also incorporate system health, environmental factors, obsolescence, safety, resilience and general capacity into the mix as OT requires all of these to be successful, not just annotation of vulnerabilities and exploits.
How Manufacturers Strengthen Cybersecurity Capabilities
Improving cybersecurity in industrial environments requires a structured approach. Manufacturers that see the most progress focus on continuous improvement over time instead of one-time projects.
Rockwell Automation supports this through a five-step model:
Assess
Manufacturers begin by understanding their current environment. This includes identifying assets, evaluating network architecture, identifying gaps and prioritizing risk across IT and OT systems.
Design
Develop a tailored roadmap that aligns to business priorities and operational risk. Build a defensible architecture that supports production.
Implement
Organizations deploy prioritized security controls focusing on improving visibility and reducing risk without interrupting operations.
Manage
With systems in place, manufacturers shift to continuous monitoring and management. This includes prioritized risk remediation, monitoring activity and staying ahead of potential threats.
Optimize
Cybersecurity evolves alongside modernization. Organizations improve their security posture as digital connectivity expands and aging infrastructure is managed. Essentially, engineering risk out over time.
A Practical Example: Church & Dwight
As a global manufacturer, Church & Dwight recognized the need to strengthen cybersecurity across its OT infrastructure. The company’s leadership identified a clear priority to improve visibility across IT and OT networks to help protect manufacturing operations.
Following the mandate to expand the company’s manufacturing cybersecurity program to include new capabilities for lowering cyber risk, Church & Dwight leveraged detailed cybersecurity assessments executed by Rockwell Automation across multiple facilities. The findings from these assessments were presented as a prioritized risk reduction approach to build a business case for strategic cybersecurity enhancements to reduce risk. Partnering with IT, cybersecurity and OT manufacturing teams, Church & Dwight prioritized their path forward in a collaborative and proactive setting.
This approach led to several important objectives:
- Clear visibility across OT networks and assets
- Ability to add context to risk severity for prioritized action
- IT and OT cybersecurity together in a holistic program
- Enhanced security monitoring practices across facilities for known and unknown threats
The results extended beyond technology. As visibility improved, manufacturing teams recognized their own roles in maintaining performance and began to engage more directly with cybersecurity efforts.
This example highlights that cybersecurity becomes most effective when it is integrated into daily operations and strengthened by collaboration across teams.
Security as the Foundation for Scalable Operations
The State of Smart Manufacturing report findings reinforce that cybersecurity empowers modern industrial operations. Organizations must build secure foundations that support the expanded connected systems throughout the company.
Without a secure, integrated foundation across IT and OT environments, advanced capabilities cannot scale safely, and organizations cannot run autonomous systems with confidence.
For manufacturers, cybersecurity shapes how they design systems, manage risk and execute in real time.
Organizations that approach cybersecurity as an operational capability are better positioned to maintain performance in increasingly complex environments. They protect not only their systems, but their ability to deliver.
The findings in this blog are from our 11th annual State of Smart Manufacturing Report. This yearly publication provides benchmark data, best practices and key insights from manufacturers at all stages of digital transformation worldwide.
https://www.rockwellautomation.com/en-us/company/news/blogs/tackling-cyber-threats.html
