CompTIA SecOT+

Industrial networks were built for reliability, not secrecy. You study the field and control protocols, the Purdue model, and why many protocols trust any device that speaks them.

• Serial and Ethernet-based industrial protocols
• Modbus, DNP3, OPC UA and others compared
• Protocols with no authentication, and the consequences
• The Purdue model and its levels
• Where IT and OT networks meet
• Wireless and cellular links in the field

You build A network map of a plant placing each device on a Purdue level, with its protocols marked.

In OT, a bad change can hurt people. You learn how functional safety and safety instrumented systems work, why availability outranks secrecy, and how management of change shapes every security action.

• Safety instrumented systems and functional safety
• Hazard analysis and its place in security
• Availability, integrity and confidentiality in priority order
• Management of change and permits to work
• Maintenance windows and outage planning
• Working with operators and engineers

You build A change procedure for a security patch on a live control system, approved by safety criteria.

OT environments hold equipment that runs for decades. You compare sectors and their constraints, build an asset inventory without disturbing a running process, and plan around unsupported systems and vendor access.

• Energy, water, manufacturing and transport environments
• Equipment life spans and unsupported systems
• Passive and active asset discovery in OT
• Building and maintaining an asset inventory
• Vendor and contractor remote access
• Building automation and other adjacent systems

You build An OT asset inventory for a lab plant, built with passive methods and sorted by process criticality.

Risk in OT is measured by what could happen to the process and to people. You assess consequences first, define zones and conduits, and record risk in terms operators and executives both accept.

• Consequence-based risk assessment
• Safety, environmental and production impact
• Zones, conduits and security levels
• Threat and vulnerability analysis for control systems
• Risk registers for OT
• Choosing risk treatments that operations will accept

You build A risk assessment of one process area, with zones, conduits and treatment decisions.

Industrial sectors face overlapping rules. You map the main standards and regulations for control systems to practical controls, and set up the evidence and audits that keep an OT security program honest.

• The IEC 62443 series in outline
• NIST guidance for industrial control systems
• Sector regulation such as NERC CIP and NIS2
• Mapping standards to a single control set
• Audits and evidence in OT environments
• Contracts and supplier requirements

You build A compliance map from two standards and one regulation to a shared set of OT controls.

OT attackers have different goals and methods from IT attackers. You study real attacks on industrial systems, the groups behind them, and the frameworks that describe them, and turn that into usable intelligence.

• Threat actors that target industrial systems
• Case studies of attacks on control systems
• MITRE ATT&CK for ICS
• Ransomware and its effect on plants
• Advisories, sharing communities and intelligence sources
• Turning intelligence into detection and design changes

You build A threat profile for one sector, mapped to ATT&CK for ICS techniques and to detections.

Good architecture limits how far one compromise can travel. You design zones and conduits, demilitarized zones, one-way gateways and remote access paths that fit how a plant is actually run.

• Zone and conduit design in practice
• Industrial demilitarized zones
• Firewalls and one-way gateways
• Secure remote access architecture
• Resilience and fail-safe design
• Reference designs for common plant layouts

You build A segmented architecture for a plant, with a remote access design and a failure analysis.

Security must be built into controllers, workstations and procedures, often without patches. You harden devices, apply compensating controls, secure configurations and engineering tools, and test changes before commissioning.

• Hardening controllers, HMIs and workstations
• Patching constraints and compensating controls
• Application allow lists in OT
• Securing engineering software and project files
• Secure commissioning and acceptance testing
• Backups of configurations and logic

You build A hardening and configuration baseline for one HMI and one controller family.

Detection in OT is built on a stable baseline. You deploy passive monitoring that understands industrial protocols, watch for changes to devices and logic, and judge alerts with the operators who know the process.

• Passive network monitoring and span placement
• Protocol-aware detection
• Baselining process and network behavior
• Detecting changes to controller logic
• Integrating OT telemetry with the SOC
• Triage with operations staff

You build A monitoring design with sensor placement and five detection use cases for a lab plant.

Daily operations in OT trade speed for safety. You manage vulnerabilities without scanning fragile devices carelessly, run patch cycles around outages, manage identities and track vendor fixes.

• Safe vulnerability assessment in OT
• Patch and update cycles around production
• Identity and access management for operators and vendors
• Configuration and change records
• Coordinating the SOC and the plant
• Security metrics operations will use

You build A quarterly OT security operations plan with a patch cycle and a vulnerability triage method.

Containing an incident in a plant may mean stopping production, or deliberately not stopping it. You write response plans that put safety first, define who decides, and preserve evidence from systems that cannot be switched off.

• OT incident response plans and roles
• Safety-first containment decisions
• Isolating networks without losing control
• Operating manually during an incident
• Evidence collection from control systems
• Communicating with operations and authorities

You build An OT incident response plan with decision criteria for isolating a network segment.

Recovery returns the process to a known safe state. You plan restoration from backups and spares, rehearse with operations staff, and feed lessons into design and procedure.

• Restoring controllers, HMIs and servers from backup
• Spare equipment and recovery priorities
• Manual fallback procedures
• Tabletop and live exercises with operators
• Post-incident review for OT
• Updating design from lessons learned

You build A recovery plan and tabletop exercise script for the loss of a control server.

One facility joins all six areas. You assess its systems and risk, design its architecture, specify its monitoring and response and present a plan that engineers, operators and management can all accept.

• Understanding the plant and its process
• Assessing risk and compliance duties
• Designing architecture and engineering controls
• Planning monitoring, response and recovery
• Presenting the plan to operations and management

You build A complete OT security plan for a plant, with risk, architecture, operations and response.