Industrial Cybersecurity (OT): 82% of Critical Networks Lack Effective Segmentation

Security audit of Operational Technology (OT) networks in 35 industrial plants across energy, manufacturing, and utilities sectors in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile revealed that 82% of critical networks lack effective segmentation from the corporate network (IT). In 68% of cases, it was possible to reach critical Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) from the administrative network via simple lateral movements in under 4 hours of controlled penetration testing. Insecure industrial protocols (Modbus TCP, unencrypted DNP3) were detected in 94% of OT networks without secure encapsulation. 76% of SCADA systems run on obsolete, unsupported operating systems (Windows 7/XP) that cannot be patched. IEC 62443 standard evaluation showed an average maturity level 1 (initial) compliance in 71% of plants, with critical deficiencies in third-party account management (maintenance vendors with unsupervised remote access in 88% of cases).