Why Should Fortune 500 Companies Be the Only Ones Who Can Afford OT Security?
There are approximately 400,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States employing around 12.7 million people. The largest 1,000 companies operate most of them, but tens of thousands of smaller manufacturers, the job shops, component suppliers, and specialty processors, make up the bulk of our industrial base.
When I look at OT cybersecurity solutions available in the market, nearly everything is priced and designed for that top tier. The rest are left choosing between spending money they don't have or accepting risks they can't afford.
The Cost Barrier
I talk to a lot of people across manufacturing, and there's a recurring theme when we discuss cybersecurity: the cost of services.
A couple of employers ago I was a consultant at Deloitte. I remember my naivety on first seeing the rate card and assuming the numbers were per day, not, as I was swiftly corrected, per hour. With engagements quoted for teams of consultants plus partner oversight, fees pile up fast.
Recently, an industry acquaintance working as IT manager for a regional manufacturer showed me an SOW quoting $65,000 for an initial risk assessment, followed by recommendations totaling $200,000. Without in-house expertise, he had no choice but to ask for the money.
The OT cybersecurity industry grew up serving large enterprises. High-touch consulting, enterprise software with substantial licensing fees, solutions requiring dedicated security personnel. This model works when the customer base is primarily Fortune 500 manufacturers with budgets to match.
Threats care little for organizational size and scale. Ransomware-as-a-service democratized attacks. Criminal groups now target any organization with OT systems, regardless of size. The barrier to entry for attackers dropped dramatically. The barrier for defenders stayed high.
Why Size Doesn't Protect You
"We're too small for hackers to bother with." I still hear this regularly. It's dangerously wrong.
Modern ransomware operations use automated reconnaissance and are facilitated by AI. Attackers scan the internet indiscriminately for vulnerable systems. Once they find an entry point, attacks execute automatically. No human evaluates company size.
Smaller manufacturers are often more attractive targets precisely because they're less likely to have robust backups, incident response plans, or cyber insurance. They're more likely to pay ransoms quickly.
In late 2023, Iranian-linked threat actors compromised a Pennsylvania municipal water authority by targeting internet-exposed Unitronics PLCs with default credentials. They weren't conducting sophisticated reconnaissance, they were scanning for low-hanging fruit. The same vulnerability – default credentials on PLCs - exists across thousands of small manufacturers running aging equipment with inadequate access controls.
Supply Chain Cascade
When small and medium manufacturers get hit, the consequences extend far beyond their facility.
That regional manufacturer you've never heard of? They might produce a critical component for automotive, aerospace, or medical device supply chains. I've seen this happen: a Tier 2 supplier gets hit with ransomware, production stops, and suddenly three major OEMs are scrambling for alternatives while their production lines sit idle.
Large manufacturers can absorb security costs and pass them through. Small manufacturers often can't. The choice becomes accepting unmitigated risk or going out of business when an incident occurs.
Customer-Driven Compliance Pressure
Beyond the threat of attack, manufacturers face mounting pressure from customers. Defense suppliers face CMMC requirements, with NIST 800-171 compliance now table stakes for handling Controlled Unclassified Information. Automotive suppliers encounter customer-mandated security assessments. Aerospace primes flow down cybersecurity requirements through supplier agreements. Medical device manufacturers face FDA expectations extending to production environments.
OEMs now routinely include cybersecurity questionnaires in supplier qualification. A 50-person precision machining shop bidding on aerospace work faces the same 200-question security assessment as a Tier 1 supplier with a dedicated compliance team. Fail the assessment, lose the contract.
The problem: these requirements assume suppliers have resources to comply. A small manufacturer doesn't have a CISO or security operations center. They have a plant manager who also handles IT, maybe an outside MSP for basic network support.
The result: manufacturers spend limited budgets on compliance documentation to keep customers, while actual security improvements get deferred. They're compliant on paper but vulnerable in practice.
What Accessible Security Actually Means
Making OT cybersecurity accessible doesn't mean dumbing it down. It means rethinking delivery models to match how most manufacturers actually operate.
Small manufacturers don't need hand-holding, but they need structured frameworks for assessment and prioritization. They need tools designed for their constraints—limited IT staff, older equipment, tight operational windows, modest budgets.
Annual costs measured in thousands rather than hundreds of thousands changes the equation fundamentally. This isn't charity: it's realistic pricing based on what these organizations can afford and the value they receive.
The AnzenOT Approach
This is why we built AnzenOT differently.
The problem we solve: Small and medium manufacturers need to understand their OT security risks, demonstrate compliance to customers, and prioritize limited security budgets but traditional consulting is unaffordable and enterprise tools are overcomplicated.
Our solution: An intelligence-powered platform providing risk assessment capabilities designed for organizations needing enterprise-level insight without enterprise budgets.
How it works:
Fixed monthly or annual subscriptions replace six-figure consulting engagements
Self-service workflows handle routine assessment tasks
Expert consultation available when needed
Assessment methodology aligned with NIST and ISA/IEC 62443 standards
Documentation generation for customer security questionnaires and compliance frameworks
The economics: For less than the cost of a single consulting engagement, a manufacturer can continuously assess against multiple security scenarios, tracking progress as controls improve. We're not billing by the hour, we're providing ongoing capability.
Why it fits: The platform leverages what manufacturers already know about their environment while providing security expertise they lack. Instead of "implement enterprise network segmentation," users get specific guidance for actions achievable today with existing resources.
This approach won't work for every organization. Large enterprises with complex environments and dedicated security teams may benefit from traditional consulting. But for the thousands of small and medium manufacturers that make up most of our industrial base, the traditional model has failed.
The Business Reality
The OT cybersecurity industry can continue optimizing for enterprise customers and large consulting margins. Or it can acknowledge that supply chain security depends on raising the baseline across all participants.
The weakest links aren't Fortune 500 companies with dedicated security teams. They're the smaller manufacturers facing real threats without access to effective defenses. When they get compromised, supply chains feel it.
We have the technology to make effective OT security accessible. Cloud platforms, automation, and purpose-built tools can deliver substantial value at dramatically lower cost. The barriers are business model constraints, not technical limitations.
The component supplier feeding your local automotive plant needs security that fits their economic reality. They face real threats. They have customers demanding compliance. They operate infrastructure that matters to supply chains far larger than themselves.
Making OT security accessible to them isn't just right—it's necessary for the resilience of the manufacturing base we all depend on.
That's what AnzenOT exists to do. Learn more at www.anzenot.com