Industrial control systems — encompassing PLCs, RTUs, DCS, SCADA, and the engineering workstations that program them — represent the most sensitive layer of OT security because a compromise here translates directly into physical process manipulation, equipment damage, and potential loss of life, as Stuxnet, TRITON/TRITSIS, and the Oldsmar water treatment attack demonstrated. Zero Trust for industrial controls applies the principles of continuous verification and least privilege to every operator session, engineering download, and historian query, using unidirectional gateways, data diodes, and identity-brokered remote access to eliminate the implicit trust that legacy controls architectures assume.
Related: Zero Trust for OT · SCADA · DCS · IEC-62443 · NERC CIP