Top 20 OT Security Tools to Protect Industrial Networks

The convergence of Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) is no longer a theoretical concept-it is the bedrock of modern industrial operations. Yet, this digital transformation, fueled by the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and smart factory initiatives, has dramatically expanded the attack surface for critical infrastructure. In an era where a cyber-attack can transition from a data breach to a physical catastrophe, the security of Industrial Control Systems (ICS) is paramount.

The challenge is distinct: OT environments, comprising Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, Distributed Control Systems (DCS), and Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), prioritize Availability and Safety over the traditional IT focus on Confidentiality. These systems often feature legacy, unpatchable hardware, proprietary protocols, and stringent uptime requirements, making standard IT security tools inadequate.

This comprehensive guide, tailored for the discerning OT professional, dives deep into the most effective, modern security solutions in the OT/ICS and Industrial IoT landscape for 2025. We’ve moved past generic lists to focus on tools that provide the specialized, high-fidelity insights and controls necessary to ensure resilience and continuity in the face of escalating threats.

The Pillars of Modern OT Security

Before reviewing the tools, it’s crucial to understand the functional categories that a robust OT security program must cover. Modern solutions are designed to address the unique constraints of industrial environments, moving from perimeter defense to a proactive, layered defense-in-depth model.

• Visibility & Asset Inventory (Identify): You can’t protect what you don’t know exists. This is the foundational layer.
• Threat Detection & Anomaly Detection (Detect): Specialized tools to monitor OT-specific protocols and baselines for signs of compromise.
• Secure Access & Segmentation (Protect): Controlling who and what can communicate with critical assets.
• Vulnerability & Risk Management (Identify/Protect): Assessing and prioritizing the patching and mitigation of weaknesses in often-legacy systems.

1. Foundational Visibility & Asset Inventory Tools

The initial step in any OT security program is achieving 100% asset visibility. This is more complex than in IT, as OT devices can’t handle active scanning. The leading tools leverage passive network monitoring and deep packet inspection (DPI) of industrial protocols to build a comprehensive, high-fidelity asset inventory.

1. Dragos Platform

• Core Capability: Deep, OT-native threat detection, response, and unparalleled threat intelligence.
• Why it Ranks: Dragos is unique in its focus on ICS-specific threat intelligence provided by the Dragos Intelligence team. Its platform provides a deep operational picture, identifying vulnerabilities, and mapping observed threats to the MITRE ATT&CK for ICS framework. It’s an elite solution for organizations that need a mature, threat-focused response capability.
• Key Feature: Threat Playbooks for rapid incident response execution.

2. Nozomi Networks Guardian

• Core Capability: Real-time asset visibility, industrial network monitoring, and threat detection.
• Why it Ranks: Nozomi Networks excels at providing a unified view of both IT and OT assets. It uses AI-powered anomaly detection and behavioral analysis to learn the “normal” state of the industrial network, enabling it to spot the subtle, early indicators of a compromise that would bypass traditional IT tools. Its strength lies in its scalability across large, diverse environments.
• Key Feature: Centralized monitoring and visualization for hybrid IT/OT deployments.

3. Claroty Platform (now including Medigate for IoMT)

• Core Capability: Comprehensive visibility, vulnerability management, and secure access for OT, IoT, and Internet of Medical Things (IoMT).
• Why it Ranks: Claroty is highly regarded for its agentless asset discovery and detailed security posture assessment. Its ability to inspect proprietary protocols and provide deep context on device configuration makes it essential for vulnerability management in brownfield sites. The acquisition of Medigate strengthens its offering for connected operational and medical assets.
• Key Feature: Continuous Vulnerability and Risk Management (V&RM) specific to firmware and configuration flaws.

4. Tenable.ot (formerly Indegy)

• Core Capability: Industrial asset security, focused on vulnerability management and deep configuration control for ICS devices.
• Why it Ranks: Tenable brings its deep heritage in vulnerability management into the OT domain. Tenable.ot provides agentless, non-intrusive visibility into the configuration and status of PLCs and controllers. It’s invaluable for organizations aiming to align their OT security posture with their overall IT risk exposure.
• Key Feature: Configuration monitoring for critical controller logic changes.

2. Network Security & Segmentation Tools

The principle of network segmentation, as advised by models like the Purdue Model

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, is paramount in OT. These tools create logical boundaries, limiting an attacker’s lateral movement and ensuring only necessary communications occur between zones.

5. Industrial Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) – Fortinet FortiGate/Palo Alto Networks

• Core Capability: Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and protocol-aware filtering for OT traffic.
• Why it Ranks: Standard firewalls see industrial protocols (like Modbus or EtherNet/IP) as generic data streams. OT-aware NGFWs, offered by leaders like Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks, can inspect the command within the industrial protocol payload (e.g., “Write to register 40001”) and block malicious or unauthorized commands, acting as a crucial control point on the DMZ (Industrial DMZ).
• Key Feature: Granular policy enforcement based on industrial protocol functions.

6. Cisco Cyber Vision

• Core Capability: Integrated OT visibility, threat detection, and segmentation control using Cisco’s existing network infrastructure.
• Why it Ranks: For organizations already using Cisco’s networking gear, Cyber Vision provides a seamless integration point. It turns existing industrial switches and routers into security sensors, offering exceptional network segmentation enforcement and policy management across the entire converged network.
• Key Feature: Sensor integration directly into industrial network hardware for pervasive monitoring.

7. TXOne Networks EdgeIPS & Stellar Series

• Core Capability: Purpose-built, ruggedized network security devices for deep-level segmentation (micro-segmentation) and virtual patching.
• Why it Ranks: TXOne’s solutions are designed to be deployed directly on the plant floor, often providing virtual patching for single, critical or end-of-life assets. Their industrial intrusion prevention system (IPS) is tailored to protect individual machine segments, a critical capability where patching is impossible.
• Key Feature: Industrial-grade hardware and ability to provide a security layer for individual cells/machines.

8. Waterfall Security Solutions Unidirectional Gateways

• Core Capability: Physical and logical enforcement of one-way data flow between the OT network and the IT/Internet zone.
• Why it Ranks: For the most critical environments (e.g., nuclear, water treatment), a one-way gateway provides an absolute physical guarantee that no cyber-attack can move from the IT network into the OT network. This is the ultimate form of segmentation, focusing on data exfiltration protection while allowing OT data out for analysis.
• Key Feature: Hardware-enforced one-way data transfer, eliminating reverse path attacks.

3. Secure Remote Access & Identity Management

Remote access is a major attack vector, especially with increased OEM and third-party vendor access for maintenance. Identity and Access Management (IAM) tools, traditionally IT-centric, have been adapted to the OT context to ensure a Zero Trust approach.

9. CyberArk Privileged Access Management (PAM) for OT

• Core Capability: Securing, managing, and monitoring all privileged accounts used by administrators, engineers, and vendors in the OT environment.
• Why it Ranks: Privileged accounts (e.g., service accounts, shared engineer logins) are the keys to the kingdom. CyberArk’s PAM solution vaults and manages these credentials, enforcing a least-privilege principle and providing session recording and monitoring for every critical OT connection. This is critical for auditing and compliance.
• Key Feature: Session isolation and recording for third-party remote vendor access.

10. Claroty Secure Remote Access (SRA)

• Core Capability: A jump server/gateway solution that provides a controlled, auditable, and secure pathway for all remote connectivity into the ICS network.
• Why it Ranks: SRA eliminates direct connections to OT assets, enforcing MFA, authorization workflows, and session monitoring at the gateway. This significantly reduces the risk of credential theft and ensures that a third-party’s compromised laptop cannot directly infect the industrial network.
• Key Feature: Enforced authorization workflows and detailed audit logs of all remote activities.

11. BeyondTrust Secure Remote Access for OT

• Core Capability: Centralized, highly controlled access for internal teams and external vendors to industrial assets.
• Why it Ranks: BeyondTrust offers a flexible, non-intrusive solution that emphasizes granular access policies and comprehensive auditing. It allows organizations to define precise access windows (e.g., “Engineer X can access PLC Y for 4 hours, and only to use this specific maintenance tool”).
• Key Feature: Just-in-Time (JIT) access grants and policy-based session management.

4. Endpoint & Vulnerability Management

In an ideal world, every HMI, Engineering Workstation, and Server in the OT network would be fully patched. Since reality is far from ideal, a layered approach using specialized endpoint protection and vulnerability assessment is necessary.

12. Kaspersky Industrial Cybersecurity (KICS)

• Core Capability: Dedicated endpoint security and network monitoring for industrial assets, including SCADA servers and HMIs.
• Why it Ranks: Kaspersky KICS is specifically designed to function on older, resource-constrained industrial PCs. It includes specialized features like Integrity Monitoring to block unauthorized changes to critical files and Application Control to ensure only approved software runs, which is crucial for systems that cannot be easily updated.
• Key Feature: Host-based intrusion prevention (HIPS) and whitelisting for stable, unpatchable systems.

13. SentinelOne Singularity for Industrial Endpoints (XDR)

• Core Capability: AI-driven Extended Detection and Response (XDR) tailored for the IT/OT converged environment.
• Why it Ranks: SentinelOne extends its highly effective behavioral AI threat detection beyond the IT realm. By integrating with OT visibility platforms, it can correlate a malicious network connection (seen in OT) with a process anomaly on a connected workstation (seen in IT), providing a complete kill chain view and automated response capabilities like device isolation.
• Key Feature: Cross-platform (IT and OT endpoint) visibility for converged threat hunting.

14. Industrial Defender ASM (Asset & Security Management)

• Core Capability: Centralized data collection and configuration management for regulatory compliance and audit readiness.
• Why it Ranks: Industrial Defender specializes in aggregating security data from across the OT environment, often focusing on heavily regulated sectors like electric utilities (NERC CIP). It provides a single pane of glass for compliance reporting, vulnerability prioritization, and managing asset lifecycle.
• Key Feature: Compliance reporting and continuous drift detection for configurations.

5. Threat Detection & Intelligence

The next generation of tools is moving beyond passive asset discovery to active threat hunting and intelligence, providing context specific to nation-state actors targeting critical infrastructure.

15. Darktrace/OT

• Core Capability: AI-powered, unsupervised machine learning for continuous threat detection and network visualization.
• Why it Ranks: Darktrace creates an “Immune System” for the industrial network. It builds a mathematical model of “self” (the normal behavior of every user and device) and spots deviations that signal a threat in real-time. This is highly effective at catching zero-day attacks or sophisticated internal threats that don’t rely on known signatures.
• Key Feature: Cyber AI Analyst for automated triage and explanation of complex incidents.

16. Splunk Enterprise Security with OT Add-Ons

• Core Capability: Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platform for correlation of IT and OT data.
• Why it Ranks: While Splunk is a data analytics platform, its value in OT comes from its ability to ingest security logs and data from all the other specialized OT tools (Dragos, Nozomi, Claroty, etc.) and correlate it with traditional IT security events. This provides a unified, cross-domain incident response and threat hunting capability.
• Key Feature: Centralized IT/OT correlation for full-scope attack analysis.

17. SCADAfence Platform (now part of Honeywell)

• Core Capability: Full-coverage network visibility, threat detection, and risk management for industrial environments.
• Why it Ranks: SCADAfence offers robust features for large-scale industrial networks, focusing on deep network traffic analysis and anomaly detection. Its integration with Honeywell’s deep industrial expertise makes it a strong choice for existing Honeywell customers and process control industries.
• Key Feature: Automated network policy enforcement suggestions based on observed baseline behavior.

6. Emerging & Specialized Tools

As the OT landscape evolves with more IIoT and cloud connectivity, new tool categories are rising to meet the unique challenges of the hyper-connected industrial edge.

18. Armis Centrix™ for OT/ICS and IoT

• Core Capability: Agentless, unified asset visibility and security for every connected device-OT, IoT, IT, and medical (IoMT).
• Why it Ranks: Armis is a leader in unified asset intelligence, offering deep, passive discovery across the entire converged environment. This tool is particularly powerful for organizations with a high degree of IoT/IIoT adoption, providing granular insight into the risk and behavior of every connected sensor and edge device.
• Key Feature: Device behavior risk scoring and policy enforcement for IoT/IIoT.

19. CyberX (now Microsoft Defender for IoT)

• Core Capability: Agentless network monitoring, risk assessment, and intrusion detection integrated into the Microsoft Azure/Defender ecosystem.
• Why it Ranks: For organizations leaning heavily into the Microsoft cloud and Azure IoT, this is a strategic choice. It provides seamless visibility and threat detection that natively integrates with Microsoft Sentinel for SIEM/SOAR and the broader Defender platform, simplifying the IT/OT security operations center (SOC) workflow.
• Key Feature: Native integration with Azure/Microsoft security services and cloud-based risk analysis.

20. Verve Industrial Protection

• Core Capability: Integrated platform for OT asset inventory, vulnerability management, and endpoint patching/hardening, delivered as a managed service.
• Why it Ranks: Verve offers a unique blend of platform and service. Unlike many passive monitoring tools, Verve has an optional Active Endpoint Agent that can assist in managing patches, configurations, and whitelisting on supported OT endpoints. This is highly valuable for organizations that need hands-on control and remediation capabilities.
• Key Feature: Active management capabilities on OT endpoints to enforce security policies and patches.

Strategizing Your OT Security Tool Deployment

Choosing the right tools is about more than a vendor list; it’s about architecting a defense that respects the unique operational constraints of your environment. An effective strategy is not about deploying all 20 tools, but about selecting the right blend to cover the essential stages of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, Recover).

1. The Power of Passive First

Start with Passive Monitoring. Solutions like Dragos, Nozomi, and Claroty use non-intrusive methods to listen to network traffic, ensuring they do not disrupt the sensitive, real-time nature of OT communications. This initial step achieves the fundamental need for Asset Inventory and Visibility.

2. Segment Everything

After achieving visibility, the next critical step is Segmentation. Use OT-aware NGFWs (Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks) and Unidirectional Gateways (Waterfall) to enforce the boundaries defined by your security architecture (e.g., separating Level 3 from Level 2 in the Purdue Model). This is a primary control for preventing lateral movement.

3. Govern Access with Zero Trust

Implement strict Secure Remote Access (SRA) solutions (Claroty, BeyondTrust) and Privileged Access Management (PAM) (CyberArk). Every access point must be authenticated with MFA and monitored, ensuring that vendor or engineer access is only granted on a “need-to-do” basis.

4. Close the Gap with OT-Specific Detection

Augment passive visibility with specialized Anomaly Detection (Darktrace, Nozomi) and Threat Intelligence (Dragos). These tools provide the necessary context to differentiate between a normal, operational hiccup and a malicious, targeted attack, drastically reducing alert fatigue for your SOC team.

5. The IT/OT Bridge: Correlation is Key

Finally, integrate the specialized OT data into a unified platform (Splunk, Microsoft Defender for IoT). The modern security team must correlate events across the IT and OT boundary to understand the full scope of an attack-from the initial IT phishing email to the final command sent to a PLC in the OT network. This convergence of data is where the true resilience of the OT Ecosystem is born.

By strategically adopting these leading solutions, industrial organizations can transition from a vulnerable, air-gapped mentality to a proactive, resilient, and fully visible security posture ready for the challenges of the digital industrial age.

Would you like to explore a deeper dive into the architecture and deployment best practices for any of these specific tool categories?