{"id":232936,"date":"2026-06-17T09:53:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T13:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/17\/ot-security-maturity-improves-across-latin-america\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T16:25:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T20:25:19","slug":"ot-security-maturity-improves-across-latin-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/17\/ot-security-maturity-improves-across-latin-america\/","title":{"rendered":"OT Security Maturity Improves Across Latin America"},"content":{"rendered":"

OT Security Maturity Improves Across Latin America<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/mexicobusiness.news\/cybersecurity\/news\/ot-security-maturity-improves-across-latin-america<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-17 09:53:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: mexicobusiness.news<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. OT cybersecurity maturity is improving across Latin America, driven by stronger executive oversight, enhanced visibility, and growing regulatory pressure, reports Fortinet in its 2026 State of Operational Technology and Cybersecurity Report.\u00a0Organizations across Latin America are improving OT cybersecurity governance, visibility, and compliance readiness. However, cyber threats targeting industrial environments continue to evolve, keeping operational risk at elevated levels.Increasing connectivity across industrial systems, cloud-based analytics, remote access, and converged IT and OT environments have expanded the attack surface available to ransomware groups and nation-state actors, explains Richard Springer, Senior Director of Product Marketing, OT, Fortinet. “Over the last few years, OT security has evolved from a specialized concern into a board-level business priority,” says Springer.The report suggests that organizations are becoming more realistic about their cybersecurity capabilities while recognizing that visibility, segmentation, remote access security, incident response, and architecture standardization remain critical areas requiring investment. This shift reflects a broader market transition in which OT security is increasingly linked to executive oversight, regulatory compliance, and operational resilience.Executive Leadership Takes Ownership of OT SecurityOne of the clearest indicators of OT security maturity is the growing involvement of senior leadership. Fortinet’s\u00a02026 State of Operational Technology and Cybersecurity Report, which gathered responses from more than 700 OT professionals worldwide, found that 81% of respondents expect responsibility for OT cybersecurity to be assigned to the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) within the next year.This represents a substantial increase compared with previous reporting periods and demonstrates that industrial cybersecurity is no longer viewed exclusively as an engineering or plant operations responsibility. Instead, organizations are adopting governance models that integrate cybersecurity, risk management, compliance, operations, and executive leadership.For industrial operators, this transition is significant because cyber incidents increasingly affect production continuity, worker safety, regulatory obligations, and financial performance.Organizations Are Reassessing Their Security MaturityThe report identifies a notable shift in how organizations evaluate their cybersecurity maturity. Historically, many respondents rated their OT security programs as highly mature. However, improved visibility, larger security budgets, and closer collaboration between IT and OT teams appear to be driving more realistic assessments.Organizations reporting Level 0 maturity, which indicates undocumented or unstructured cybersecurity processes, increased from 1% in 2025 to 5% in 2026. Level 1 organizations increased from 5% to 17%, while Level 2 organizations rose from 13% to 27%.Meanwhile, organizations classifying themselves at Level 4, representing the most advanced maturity stage, declined from 49% to 17%. Rather than signaling deterioration, Fortinet interprets this change as evidence of improved self-awareness.\u00a0A similar trend emerged in OT security technology deployment. The percentage of organizations reporting the highest maturity level for OT security solutions declined from 19% to 14%, indicating that many industrial operators remain focused on establishing foundational controls such as asset visibility, network segmentation, monitoring, and secure remote access.Increased Detection Reveals the Scope of Cyber ThreatsThe report also highlights changes in intrusion reporting patterns. Seventy-one percent of respondents reported experiencing between one and nine intrusions, representing a 47% increase compared with the previous year. At the same time, the percentage of organizations reporting more than 10 intrusions remained stable at 2%.According to Fortinet, these findings do not necessarily indicate a surge in attacks. Instead, they suggest that organizations are becoming more capable of detecting malicious activity within operational environments.The report identifies a positive development in segmentation effectiveness. Only 24% of respondents reported intrusions affecting both IT and OT environments, compared with 60% in 2025. This represents the lowest level recorded since 2023 and suggests that stronger separation between networks is limiting lateral movement by attackers.Despite these improvements, phishing remains the most frequently reported intrusion vector, cited by 76% of respondents. Ransomware continues to represent a major concern, affecting 50% of surveyed organizations. Although this figure declined from 54% in 2025, the operational consequences associated with ransomware attacks keep it among the highest-priority risks for industrial operators.Dwell Time and Regulatory Pressure to Challenge OrganizationsThe report identifies attacker dwell time as another growing concern. While short-duration intrusions have stabilized, the number of attacks remaining undetected for weeks or months has increased. Extended dwell times provide threat actors with opportunities to conduct surveillance, extract intellectual property, prepare ransomware campaigns, and disrupt industrial operations.Fortinet notes that reducing dwell time requires more than monitoring tools. Organizations must combine OT-specific visibility, threat intelligence, network segmentation, secure remote access controls, and incident response planning designed for industrial environments.At the same time, regulatory expectations are accelerating. Eighty-nine percent of respondents expect cybersecurity regulations affecting OT environments to increase within five years or less, compared with 66% in 2025. The report also recorded a 20% increase in respondents expecting new regulations to emerge within two to five years.This trend reflects growing government attention toward critical infrastructure protection, incident reporting requirements, data security, public safety, and business continuity.Visibility and Modernization Remain Strategic PrioritiesVisibility continues to serve as a foundational requirement for OT cybersecurity. Fortinet found that the percentage of organizations reporting complete visibility across OT environments increased from 5% in 2025 to 14% in 2026. However, about 23% of respondents indicated that they can observe only half of their OT infrastructure. Limited visibility restricts organizations’ ability to identify assets, monitor communications, detect abnormal activity, and prioritize response actions.\u00a0The report also reveals ongoing modernization efforts across industrial environments. Forty percent of respondents reported operating industrial control systems less than five years old, representing a 20% increase compared with 2025.Although modernization can improve reliability, performance, and security, it also introduces additional connectivity, cloud integration, remote access capabilities, and data-sharing requirements. As a result, cybersecurity planning must be incorporated into modernization initiatives from the outset.Fortinet concludes that organizations can accelerate OT security maturity by focusing on five areas:IT and OT segmentationSecure remote accessIntegrated incident response planningOT-specific threat intelligencePlatform-based security architectures.
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