One of the greatest fears among government officials and security experts is a crippling cyberattack on industrial organizations that run essential services, including electricity, water, oil and gas production, and manufacturing systems. The proprietary and complex nature of the operational technology (OT) tools used in these systems, not to mention their rapid convergence with IT technology, makes securing OT systems a chronic, high-stakes challenge.
The growing demand for greater OT and industrial control system (ICS) security expertise has led to the rise of a vibrant group of OT security companies that vigorously compete with one another to grab customers in the growing space. These competitors are setting aside their rivalries to collaborate on a new vendor-neutral, open-source, and anonymous OT threat early warning system called ETHOS (Emerging Threat Open Sharing) that aims to share data on early threat indicators and discover new and novel attacks.