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Experts urge focused, practical steps to secure OT: five controls, clearer federal guidance, supply-chain standards
Summary
Witnesses and members recommended prioritized, implementable measures to protect operational technology: inventory OT assets, apply known critical controls, harmonize federal guidance, fund deployments rather than reinvent tools, and raise vendor security standards.
Witnesses at the House Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing outlined concrete steps they say will materially reduce OT risk if implemented with scale and clarity.
Robert M. Lee of Dragos summarized a set of practical priorities and told members: “First, we must stop treating OT like IT. These systems have different risks and require different defense strategies.” Lee advocated targeted public–private partnerships, streamlined federal guidance and letting the private sector lead on deployable technology while the government focuses on “over the horizon threats.”
Lee recounted a private-sector success: Littleton Electric in Massachusetts used federal grant funding and Dragos technology to detect and mitigate an intrusion tied to an actor the witness identified as Volt Typhoon. “They were able to do this because they had visibility in their OT networks, and they were proactive in their security,” Lee said.
Panelists and members repeatedly urged simplicity and a single federal voice for guidance. Several witnesses referenced the SANS Institute’s “five critical controls” as an example of a short, implementable starting point. Tatiana Bolton of the Operational Technology Cybersecurity Coalition said operators need prioritized “quick start” guidance rather than long frameworks: “NIST is creating some quick start guides. I think that would be very important to do for OT security.”
Other recommendations included: require stronger security standards for vendors and components sold into critical infrastructure, improve credentialing and coordination for incident response teams, and expand funding so small utilities can inventory assets, segment networks and deploy multifactor authentication.
Why it matters: Witnesses said large-scale execution of a small number of proven controls would raise the baseline security posture across hundreds of thousands of small and medium-size critical infrastructure operators that currently lack OT visibility and resources.
