When industrial cybersecurity programs fail, it’s rarely due to a lack of tools or frameworks. It’s because governance, the glue that holds strategy, execution, and accountability together is either missing, misaligned, or misunderstood.
According to Ponemon Institute’s research, only 21% of industrial organizations report their ICS/OT cybersecurity programs have reached full maturity. One key reason? Governance frameworks that exist on paper but never take root across operations, engineering, and leadership.
Let’s break down the most common governance failures holding back industrial security in 2025 and what can be done to fix them.
1. Governance Without Ownership
Many organizations still lack clear accountability for OT cybersecurity. Only 12% say the CISO is responsible for ICS/OT security; the rest defer to engineering or IT, creating gaps in oversight. [Source: Ponemon-Institute-State]
Why it matters: When no one owns cybersecurity outcomes, response is slow, and priorities are misaligned. Boards remain uninformed. Budgets stay misdirected.
What to do:
- Define cross-functional ownership: OT, IT, security, and leadership.
- Create a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) model tied to each control area.
- Embed governance into daily decisions not just annual audits.
2. Policies That Don’t Match OT Reality
Many organizations attempt to copy-paste IT cybersecurity policies into OT environments. But as SANS highlights, tailored controls aligned with safety and engineering requirements are critical to avoid false positives, unplanned outages, and operational friction.
What to do:
- Customize policies for OT-specific risk: safety, uptime, process continuity.
- Involve plant engineers in policy creation, not just sign-off.
- Align to frameworks like ISA/IEC 62443 but translate them into operational context.
3. No Governance Over Third Parties
From OEMs to integrators, third parties are deeply embedded in industrial operations but rarely governed under the same cybersecurity controls.
Why it matters: The Ascension breach (May 2025) was traced back to an unpatched vulnerability in a third-party vendor’s system impacting hospitals, delaying treatments. [Source: Dragos-2025-OT-Cybersec]
What to do:
- Extend governance to procurement: Require vendors to meet minimum security baselines.
- Maintain a centralized inventory of third-party access points and privileges.
- Enforce role-based access, logging, and remote access approval protocols.
4. Missing Operational Context in Compliance
Governance documents often check the box for compliance but skip operational context. For example, access logs may be collected, but no one reviews them. Incident response plans exist but aren’t tested in live scenarios.
According to Ponemon, only 35% of respondents say OT Cybersecurity is reported to the board, and often only during incidents.
What to do:
- Map governance controls to real-world use cases and operational risks.
- Build dashboards that reflect operational impact not just compliance status.
- Run quarterly tabletop exercises simulating OT-specific breach scenarios.
5. Lack of Visibility into Policy Enforcement
Policies only matter if they’re enforced. But most governance programs lack real-time visibility into who has access, whether controls are bypassed, or if security standards are consistently followed across teams.
As the Dragos 2025 report emphasizes, attackers are evolving faster than defenders, and poor visibility creates blind spots they exploit.
What to do:
- Monitor policy enforcement metrics (e.g., MFA coverage, patch status, access logs).
- Use centralized governance tools that integrate with assets, risk, and compliance systems.
- Set thresholds and alerts for policy violations in high-risk zones.
How OTNexus Supports Stronger OT Governance
With complex responsibilities spanning multiple departments and vendors, industrial governance can’t be managed through scattered spreadsheets and PDFs.
The OTNexus Governance Module helps bridge these gaps by:
- Centralizing policy, roles, and standards documentation with version control
- Tracking enforcement through audit-ready dashboards
- Connecting governance directly to risk, compliance, and asset modules
- Defining responsibilities and approvals with full traceability
This integrated approach makes governance both visible and actionable turning policies into real-world protection.
Explore how OT governance becomes scalable and enforceable with OTNexus.
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