Forescout has released findings from the ‘Global Industrial Cybersecurity Benchmark 2025’, an international study conducted by Takepoint Research and sponsored by Forescout, that revealed some stark disconnects. The research discovered that 44% of industrial organisations claim to have strong real-time cyber visibility, but nearly 60% have low to no confidence in their Operational Technology (OT) and Internet of Things (IoT) threat detection capabilities.
The Industrial Cybersecurity Benchmark 2025 surveyed 236 operational technology and automation leaders to identify their key challenges, maturity gaps and strategic priorities as risks to industrial organisations continue to rise. Rapid digitalisation has increased connectivity across devices, transforming industrial environments — which in turn increases cyber risk. Rising geopolitical tensions further compound these challenges, requiring more nuanced, strategic and integrated security approaches to protect critical assets while maintaining operations.
“Industrial leaders tell us that they’re under intense pressure to modernise operations while still relying on fragmented and outdated security technologies,” said Jonathon Gordon, Directing Analyst, Takepoint Research. “They recognise that incremental fixes aren’t enough — they need a unified security strategy that bridges IT and OT, backed by executive support and driven by automation.”
Key findings:
- The top security concern is supply chain threats and cyber criminal activity:
- 50% of organisations claim these are their top concern, far exceeding concerns about nation-state actors (8%) and zero-day vulnerabilities (9%)
- This reflects a focus on tangible, near-term disruptions, rather than protection against long-term strategic risks that may be harder to detect but equally damaging over time
- Most organisations are in early stages of OT cybersecurity maturity:
- Only 17% of organisations report mature OT security practices, while 64% classify their maturity as foundational, characterised by manual processes and fragmented visibility and compensating controls
- An additional 19% identify their cybersecurity maturity as evolving
- Remediation timelines expose prolonged risk:
- Over 33% of organisations take more than 90 days to remediate threats
- 63% take over 30 days due to insufficient metrics tracking, industrial maintenance constraints and a lack of automation to streamline response workflows
- Widespread tool sprawl and fragmentation remains a challenge:
- 57% of organisations deploy more than three tools to monitor IT, OT and IoT environments
- This results in heightened risk from blind spots, alert fatigue, inconsistent insights and increased operational complexity
- Critical security tasks are still highly manual and time-intensive:
- Nearly half of organisations cite vulnerability prioritisation (49%) and risk mitigation (44%) as the most laborious tasks
- This is further exacerbated by challenges with limited staffing and heavy manual workflows
“Low confidence in OT and IoT threat detection is a warning signal, not just a statistic,” said Christina Hoefer, Vice President of OT/ IoT Vertical and Strategy, Forescout. “For industrial organisations managing complex, high-stakes environments, improving detection means visibility across all devices, monitoring OT networks and strategically investing in security controls that respect operational needs to reduce risks and enable effective incident response.”
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