The IT Nerd

Cyberattacks affecting operational technology (OT) can disrupt production, equipment, and essential services, resulting in consequences that extend beyond disruptions to traditional IT systems. To help organizations evaluate their preparedness, Cloud Range today introduced the Cloud Range OT Cyber Readiness Assessment, a free, 28-question resource designed to identify potential gaps in OT incident response preparedness.

The assessment provides a practical starting point for IT, security, OT, and engineering teams to evaluate how well they understand their environments, coordinate responsibilities, and prepare to detect, investigate, respond to, and recover from cyber incidents affecting industrial operations.

T Cybersecurity Threats Reinforce the Need for Preparedness

Recent research illustrates the scale of cyber threats facing industrial organizations. The Dragos 2026 OT Cybersecurity Year in Review reports that approximately 3,300 industrial organizations were affected by ransomware in 2025.

Palo Alto Networks’ 2026 State of Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Report found that 59% of surveyed critical infrastructure organizations experienced a significant security breach in the past year. The research also found that 74% had not fully integrated IT and OT security operations, highlighting the importance of coordinated incident response.

The report also identifies operational consequences of cybersecurity incidents, including safety concerns, unplanned downtime, production disruptions, and financial losses.

Together, these findings underscore a central challenge for organizations operating OT and industrial control systems (ICS): preventing attacks is important, but so is understanding whether teams can recognize, investigate, and respond quickly and effectively when incidents occur.

An attack does not have to originate within an OT network to affect industrial operations. Compromises involving enterprise IT systems, third-party access, supply chains, or interconnected infrastructure can create consequences for production environments and critical services.

Seven Critical Areas of OT Cyber Readiness

The Cloud Range OT Cyber Readiness Assessment examines seven areas that influence an organization’s ability to prepare for and respond to cyberattacks affecting OT environments:

• Know Your Environment: Understand critical OT assets, systems, dependencies, and connections between IT and OT environments.
• Know Your Threats and Stakes: Recognize relevant cyber threats and their potential impact on operations, equipment, and safety.
• Bridge IT and OT: Establish shared responsibilities, communication, and decision-making across IT, security, OT, and engineering teams.
• Detect and Investigate: Identify suspicious activity, investigate threats, and determine their potential operational consequences.
• Respond Without Making It Worse: Make coordinated incident response decisions that account for production continuity, equipment, and safety.
• Recover and Maintain Resilience: Understand recovery priorities, system dependencies, and procedures for restoring critical operations.
• Prove Readiness Before It Matters: Validate response capabilities through realistic cyberattack simulations and measurable performance.
  

Each area includes three questions, with responses of Ready, Developing, or Unsure.

Rather than assigning a numerical score, the assessment helps organizations identify gaps, uncertainties, and areas requiring further attention. IT, security, OT, and engineering teams can complete it independently and compare their responses to uncover differences in understanding, unclear responsibilities, or differing assumptions about preparedness.

Why OT Incident Response Preparedness Requires Cross-Functional Coordination

OT environments present distinct incident response challenges because cyber decisions can affect physical equipment, industrial processes, production availability, and potentially safety.

Actions that may be appropriate in an enterprise IT environment, such as isolating a system or shutting down a device, can require additional operational evaluation when industrial systems are involved.

Effective OT incident response therefore depends on coordination among teams with different responsibilities and expertise.

IT and security personnel may focus on identifying malicious activity, containing threats, and investigating compromised systems. OT and engineering personnel understand process dependencies, equipment limitations, and the operational consequences of response decisions.

Both perspectives are essential. The integration gap identified in the Palo Alto Networks research reinforces the importance of shared understanding, clear responsibilities, and coordinated decision-making across IT, security, OT, and engineering teams.

Understanding how to assess OT cyber readiness across these functions helps organizations identify where their procedures, communication, and decision-making may require further attention.

The assessment is intended to support those conversations before an actual incident demands coordinated action.

From OT Cyber Readiness Assessment to Attack-Based Validation

An assessment can help organizations identify preparedness gaps, but it cannot establish how effectively teams will perform during a real cyber incident.

That requires opportunities to investigate attacks, make decisions, coordinate across functions, and evaluate the results in realistic environments.

Cloud Range helps organizations strengthen critical infrastructure cyber readiness, realistic cloud-based OT/ICS, IT, cloud, and hybrid environments where teams can investigate cyber threats, coordinate incident response, and measure performance. Its critical infrastructure cybersecurity and readiness programs help organizations prepare for attacks that may disrupt industrial processes, equipment, and essential services.

The Cloud Range OT Cyber Range supports flat and Purdue-model industrial network architectures, allowing teams to investigate how connectivity, segmentation, and system dependencies influence attack progression and response. Hardware-in-the-loop capabilities can also connect physical OT laboratory equipment to the cyber range for cyber-physical security validation.

Through OT cyberattack simulations and adversary emulation, teams can investigate ransomware, supply-chain compromise, credential theft, lateral movement, and threats affecting industrial systems.

Performance metrics highlight how teams improve in detecting threats, investigating activity, coordinating decisions, and improving incident response over time.

Across Cloud Range customer engagements, measured improvements have included reductions of up to 66% in mean time to detect and improvements of up to 30% in overall incident response time. These results reflect broader cyber readiness programs and are not specific to OT environments.

Building a More Complete Picture of OT Cyber Readiness

As IT and OT environments become more interconnected, organizations face growing pressure to understand both their cybersecurity exposure and their ability to respond to incidents with operational consequences.

The Cloud Range OT Cyber Readiness Assessment provides a structured way to evaluate preparedness across seven critical areas. Organizations can use the findings to prioritize improvements and identify where realistic attack-based validation can provide stronger evidence of readiness.

The objective is not simply to have an incident response plan. It is to build confidence that the people, processes, and technologies involved can work together when an attack affects operations.

Cloud Range, the industry’s leading cyber range solution, and Cyviz, a global leader in immersive collaboration technology, announced their initiative to enhance cybersecurity training within higher education institutions as partners for IBM’s Cyber Campus offering. Working together to deliver IBM’s Cyber Campus, Cloud Range, Cyviz, and IBM equip students with practical, hands-on experiential learning through an immersive, live-fire simulation platform—bridging the gap between academic knowledge and real-world job experience.

A dangerous shortage of cybersecurity workers in the United States puts digital privacy and the nation’s infrastructure at risk. ISC2’s 2024 Cybersecurity Workforce Study indicates a global cybersecurity workforce gap of 4.8 million, with a North American gap of 543,000, highlighting a stagnant workforce and a growing skills gap. This demand far outpaces supply, leaving 70% of businesses with open cybersecurity positions. With cybersecurity occupations projected to grow by 35% compared to 4% in other industries, the need for comprehensive, hands-on training has never been more critical. With IBM Cyber Campus, educational institutions can expand their investments in cybersecurity education and offer coursework that helps build the new cyber workforce with practical, hands-on experience.

Providing a risk-free, hands-on space to practice responding to real-world cyber threats, the IBM Cyber Campus, powered by Cloud Range and Cyviz, provides users across the U.S. with unparalleled access to advanced simulations and tools through a cutting-edge SaaS platform featuring specialized labs, live-fire exercises, and skill packs purpose-built for educational institutions. In addition, building a realistic Security Operations Center (SOC) environment provides individuals and teams an invaluable opportunity to develop, practice, and refine crucial human skills alongside technical expertise for effective cybersecurity operations. The flexibility of the IBM Cyber Campus experience ensures educational institutions can integrate comprehensive cybersecurity training into their curriculum without the need for extensive travel or infrastructure modifications.

To learn more about IBM’s Cyber Campus, visit: https://www.ibm.com/services/consulting-cyber-campus.

Cloud Range, the industry’s leading cyber range solution to reduce exposure to cyber risk across the organization, today announced the launch of its new training program, Cybersecurity Incident Commander Training. Offered for a limited time at no cost, the training is tailored to those managing incidents in the security operations center (SOC).

Previously existing tools and training only focus on individual jobs and tasks in the SOC and, while critical to the team’s ability to detect and remediate incidents, they do not target the Incident Commander role. Further, many teams do not have a specific “commander” role or backup if the designated team lead is unavailable. This new training by Cloud Range is dedicated to the Incident Commander who oversees the SOC team when an incident or event occurs, such as a ransomware attack, data breach, or any other cybersecurity incident. 

Aligned with the job description developed by FEMA and the National Incident Management System (NIMS), the Incident Commander is one of the most critical roles during an incident because it orchestrates the team and resources and is the source of “ground truth” on the incident. That’s why the Incident Commander role requires “soft skills” such as leadership and communication that, without, can lead to team breakdowns. 

The Incident Commander training is a new stand-alone, online, self-paced course valued at $499. The goal is to provide security professionals with an overview of the responsibilities and skills needed to swiftly resolve an incident. Incorporating real-world scenarios enables learners to determine how to assign tasks, communicate across multiple levels of the organization, and lead the team effectively. The course is designed to highlight strengths and weaknesses so the trainee can improve their ability to manage their team in future situations. The result is that the Incident Commander has a better understanding of their role, how to manage an incident and improve time management, and how to elevate the performance of the incident response team. 

After successfully taking the course, which is the first part of the certification process, trainees receive a badge to show completion. 

Trainees are eligible for the complete certification after also being the Incident Commander during two of Cloud Range’s live-fire cyber attack exercises, which are dynamic, team-based simulations of real-world attacks on Cloud Range’s virtual cyber range. Like a flight simulator, the attack simulations enable the Incident Commander to fully step into the role, guide the team, work with the incident reporter, and practice all the skills and techniques required to be effective. The comprehensive, two-part training process gives security professionals deep knowledge, insight, and hands-on experience that equips them to be an effective Incident Commander.

Learn more and sign up for the Cloud Range Incident Commander Training, valued at $499 and offered at no cost for a limited time here.

Cloud Range, the industry’s leading cyber range solution to reduce cyber risk across the organization, today announced that it has appointed Galina Antova to its board of directors to help propel the company to the next level, as it continues to be a global leader in the industry making organizations around the world more resilient against cyber attacks.  

Galina Antova is a respected cybersecurity leader who brings to Cloud Range a proven track record in building successful cybersecurity companies and over a decade of experience advancing the state of cybersecurity for critical infrastructure. As Co-founder and Chief Business Development Officer of industrial cybersecurity company Claroty, Antova played an integral role in growing the organization from its conceptual stage to a unicorn with over $100 million in sales. 

Antova will play a key role on the board of directors in helping advance Cloud Range through the next phase of company growth as it expands product offerings and capabilities to new and existing customers globally. Her experience driving growth will help Cloud Range continue to reach new audiences, guide new product development, and leverage new sales.

Before co-founding Claroty, Antova held the position of Global Head of Industrial Security Services at Siemens, where she established the industry’s first-ever comprehensive industrial cybersecurity offering for enterprise customers. Prior to Siemens, she held a number of technical leadership roles in IBM’s Provisioning and Cloud Solutions business. Antova also brings expertise from working with Fortune 500 companies on large-scale digital transformations and advising Boards, CISOs, and CIOs on leveraging cybersecurity as a competitive advantage. She frequently advises Boards, shareholders, media, and the public on the compliance and risk implications of security breaches in industrial networks and, in particular, risks relating to national security.

Antova is passionate about furthering women in technology. She is a Founding Member of Firstboard.io, a curated group of accomplished female executives in technology working together to increase the representation of women on boards and at the highest level of corporate governance and management. She also served as Program Chair for the Seed-to-A Program at All Raise, a program dedicated to guiding and supporting women entrepreneurs through all stages of funding and growth.

Cloud Range, the industry’s leading cyber range solution to reduce cyber risk across the organization, today announced an agreement with ActiveBytes Innovations LLC, a provider of high-quality information security solutions, to be the preferred distributor of Cloud Range products and services in the Middle East including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.

According to Frost & Sullivan, the Middle East’s cybersecurity market is projected to be worth $31 billion by 2030 as cybersecurity awareness and readiness grow in the region that is home to some of the world’s largest oil producers. As industrial organizations in industries such as oil and gas pursue digital transformation initiatives, they increase their cyber risk and exposure to the ransomware and cyber attacks that have become pervasive. Governments and enterprises are prioritizing cybersecurity—in particular ICS/OT cybersecurity—to build cyber resilience and protect their critical infrastructure. Yet they are challenged with a lack of talent and skills specific to their region and industries.

Together, Cloud Range and ActiveBytes Innovations will enable organizations in the Middle East to reduce cyber risk and increase operational efficiencies by ensuring their cybersecurity teams are prepared to meet any challenge in the face of an ever-evolving threat landscape. ActiveBytes Innovations will provide and distribute Cloud Range’s full suite of products and services, including:

• FlexRange™ live-fire cyber simulation exercises for teams
• FlexLabs™ cybersecurity skills development courses and labs
• FastTrak™ Candidate Assessments
• RightTrak™ Cyber Aptitude Assessments
• Tabletop 2.0™ executive response exercises

Cloud Range helps close the cyber skills gap with an innovative cyber range platform that ensures cyber defenders gain the skills and experience they need to protect organizations and critical infrastructure against detrimental and potentially deadly cyber attacks. The realistic and customizable cyber range is a safe, virtual environment that emulates actual networks, infrastructure, and technology and gives practitioners hands-on experience in detecting and mitigating real attacks.

ActiveBytes Innovations provides a comprehensive security portfolio to protect customers across endpoints, infrastructure, applications, and in the cloud. Its team proactively researches the ever-evolving threat landscape and develops solutions to defend against complex malware and cyber attacks.

 Learn more at cloudrangecyber.com.