Industrial Control System Security: Protecting Critical Infrastructure from Cyber Threats in 2026

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Industrial Control Systems Face Growing Cyber Threats in 2026

The cybersecurity landscape for Industrial Control Systems (ICS) is expected to worsen in 2026, with experts warning of increased attacks from nation-states and cybercriminals. ICS, which were designed to prioritize reliability and safety over security, are now vulnerable to sophisticated attacks that can have devastating consequences.

Challenges Facing ICS Security

According to Bryson Bort, CEO of SCYTHE, the biggest problem facing ICS security is the longevity of the hardware, which can be up to 20 years old. This makes it difficult to patch vulnerabilities, and operators are often reluctant to take systems offline to perform updates.

Tim Mackey, head of software supply chain risk strategy at Black Duck, notes that legacy best practices may not be effective against current threats, and that attackers know that critical infrastructure providers are measured by their uptime, making them more likely to target them.

Ransomware and Cyber Pre-positioning

ICS are also vulnerable to ransomware attacks, which can have significant financial and operational consequences. Michael Freeman, head of threat intelligence at Armis, warns that more than a third of global energy and utilities infrastructure will have experienced cyber pre-positioning activity by 2026.

This involves attackers quietly occupying critical industries to neutralize them in the event of a kinetic war.

New Attack Vectors

The fusion of IT, OT, and IoT has also created new attack vectors, with attackers able to exploit minor IoT devices as entry points and laterally move into core operational networks.

Alex Mosher, president and CRO at Armis, notes that attackers could weaponize “smart city” systems or exploit IoT devices to cause physical damage or service outages.

Recommendations for ICS Security

To address these challenges, experts recommend a more complete and detailed inventory of components in the ICS environment, as well as continuous threat exposure management.

Christian Terlecki, Director of Federal at Armis, notes that agencies will need to identify controllers, medical devices, industrial controllers, and edge appliances, and understand their operational roles and interconnections.

Zero-Trust Principles and Artificial Intelligence

In addition, experts recommend the adoption of zero-trust principles, including microsegmentation, identity-centric access control, and behavioral monitoring.

Agnidipta Sarkar, chief evangelist at ColorTokens, notes that microsegmentation can help reduce the attack surface, while James Maude, field CTO at BeyondTrust, recommends taking a holistic view of privileges, entitlements, and roles to prevent attackers from elevating privilege and moving laterally.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is also expected to play a greater role in ICS security, with some experts recommending the use of AI-driven anomaly detection to identify unusual network traffic or suspicious engineering actions.

However, others warn that AI is not a silver bullet and that its value is often overstated. Gary Schwartz, go-to-market lead at NetRise, notes that anomaly detection only sees what happens after a compromise manifests on the network, and that real resilience comes from combining behavioral monitoring with pre-deployment assurance.

Conclusion

Ultimately, experts agree that ICS security will require a more complete and detailed understanding of the environment, as well as a more proactive and adaptive approach to security.

Jeremy Epstein, security co-chair of the ACM US Technology Policy Committee, notes, “What works in 2025 will certainly not be good enough in 2030, as the threats will continue to advance, and the systems will continue to evolve adding new attack surfaces.”