In 2025, digital transformation has pushed operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) closer than ever before. Manufacturing plants, hospitals, smart cities, and energy grids now depend on billions of connected devices — yet this connectivity has brought a complex new security challenge: maintaining visibility and control across every asset. The proliferation of many IoT devices within these environments complicates visibility and control, as organizations must now manage and secure an ever-growing number of endpoints.

For many organizations, unmanaged or unseen devices remain the single biggest blind spot in their cybersecurity strategy. Many organizations struggle to identify and secure all devices, leading to significant security gaps. Without full visibility, there is no control. And without control, there is no trust.

This is why IoT/OT visibility is now considered the foundation of modern Zero Trust architectures. IoT visibility is a critical component, requiring real-time awareness of all connected devices to uncover blind spots and enable proactive threat response. It’s also why Device Authority’s latest solutions — including KeyScaler 2025 and its AI-powered Discovery Tool — are transforming how enterprises secure, monitor, and automate their connected environments.

Device Authority helps organizations achieve visibility across OT networks by leveraging non-intrusive monitoring techniques, such as passive monitoring, to identify assets, communication protocols, and vulnerabilities without disrupting operational processes.

Why IoT/OT Visibility Is the Starting Point for Cyber Resilience

You can’t secure what you can’t see. It’s a simple truth, yet still one of the most common weaknesses in enterprise infrastructure today. The rise of shadow IoT, legacy industrial controllers, and remote edge devices has created networks that evolve faster than traditional security teams can track.

The result? Incomplete inventories, unmanaged credentials, outdated firmware, and policy drift. Every hidden device increases the probability of a breach and weakens compliance posture.

Regulators are taking notice. Frameworks such as NIST, the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), and Executive Order 14028 now emphasise continuous asset visibility as a core component of risk management. Achieving compliance under these frameworks demands an automated, always-on approach — not just annual audits or static spreadsheets. Continuous visibility is essential for ensuring compliance with these standards, enabling organizations to proactively address risks, maintain security controls, and demonstrate due diligence.

The Convergence of IT and OT: A New Attack Surface

Until recently, OT systems — from programmable logic controllers, control systems, to sensors and gateways — operated in isolation. Their security was physical, not digital. Now, as factories, hospitals, and utilities become data-driven, OT networks have merged with IT, connecting once-air-gapped assets to the wider enterprise and cloud. This convergence leads to increased risk, as the expanded attack surface makes organizations more vulnerable to cyber threats.

This convergence unlocks enormous efficiency gains, but it also exposes critical infrastructure to cyber threats that were never part of the OT design model. Malware like TRITON and Industroyer 2 have shown how attackers can move laterally from IT to OT, compromising safety-critical systems. Mapping attack paths is essential to identify vulnerabilities and understand how threats can propagate within industrial and OT environments.

The lesson: visibility must be unified. Separate tools for IT and OT create dangerous silos. Collaboration between IT teams and OT professionals is crucial to maintain network integrity. What’s needed is a single platform capable of discovering, authenticating, and managing every device across both domains — regardless of age, vendor, or location.

What Complete Visibility Really Means

Many vendors claim to provide “visibility,” but the definition varies. At Device Authority, full visibility means more than just listing connected devices. It means understanding their identity, purpose, behaviour, and security posture in real time.

Key metrics of true visibility include:

• Identity Awareness: Every device must have a verifiable digital identity — not just a MAC address or hostname, but a trusted credential.
• Device Type Inventory: Identifying and cataloging each device type within the OT network ensures comprehensive asset discovery and classification.
• Behavioural Context: Knowing what each device should be doing allows deviations to be detected immediately.
• Lifecycle Tracking: Visibility extends from onboarding to decommissioning; expired certificates or inactive devices are automatically identified.
• Compliance State: Continuous evaluation against policies and frameworks ensures regulatory alignment at all times.
• Topology Insight: Mapping how devices interact across networks provides situational awareness for rapid incident response.

Without these capabilities, visibility remains superficial — and risk remains high.

The Role of AI in Modern Device Discovery

Manual asset discovery is no longer viable in dynamic IoT/OT environments. Devices appear, disappear, and change state constantly. AI has become essential for transforming raw network data into actionable intelligence by analyzing network traffic to identify devices.

KeyScaler 2025’s AI-driven Discovery Engine analyses traffic patterns, communication protocols, and metadata to automatically identify all devices — managed or unmanaged — across hybrid networks. Unlike traditional active scanning methods, which send probe packets and can disrupt OT devices, KeyScaler uses passive monitoring that listens to network traffic. This approach avoids disrupting operations, ensuring visibility without impacting uptime or interfering with sensitive OT environments. It doesn’t rely on agents or pre-installed software, making it effective even for legacy or resource-constrained endpoints.

Once discovered, each device is fingerprinted and matched to a machine identity, enabling automated onboarding into the Zero Trust framework. This process transforms chaotic networks into controlled ecosystems where every device is accounted for and governed by policy.

Discover KeyScaler 2025

From Visibility to Control: The Automation Advantage

Visibility alone isn’t enough — organisations also need the ability to act. Once devices are discovered, they must be authenticated, authorised, and continuously monitored.

KeyScaler 2025 is a security platform that enables this through policy-based automation. Its AI Policy Engine evaluates each device’s trust score and enforces context-specific actions such as:

• Automatic certificate provisioning or renewal
• Dynamic segmentation and access restriction
• Quarantine or remediation for non-compliant devices
• Encryption and secure key distribution for data in motion
• Revocation of credentials at device end-of-life

Policy-based automation is a core component of comprehensive security solutions for IoT/OT environments, supporting device discovery, classification, and secure management.

These controls operate autonomously, ensuring that every connection is verified and every action is logged. For security teams, this means less manual intervention and faster incident containment, helping to reduce risk by enabling rapid response to threats — turning visibility into operational resilience.

Critical Infrastructure Protection: Safeguarding the Backbone

Protecting critical infrastructure has never been more vital, especially as operational technology (OT) systems become increasingly interconnected with IT networks. This convergence has dramatically expanded the attack surface, exposing essential services and industrial processes to sophisticated cyber threats. Complete visibility into OT environments is now a non-negotiable requirement for effective OT security.

Security teams must be able to identify every device within their OT systems—whether legacy controllers, sensors, or newly deployed IoT devices—to uncover potential threats and vulnerabilities before they can disrupt business operations. Real-time device discovery is essential for mapping the entire OT environment, while effective network segmentation helps contain threats and prevent lateral movement across critical assets. Continuous monitoring of OT protocols ensures that any abnormal activity is detected early, allowing for rapid response.

By achieving comprehensive visibility and control over OT devices and networks, organizations can significantly reduce the risk of cyber attacks, maintain operational continuity, and protect the backbone of their critical infrastructure. This proactive approach not only safeguards essential services but also strengthens the overall security posture of the entire organization.

Achieving Compliance Through Continuous Monitoring

The evolving regulatory environment has made compliance a moving target. New frameworks require ongoing evidence of secure operations, not point-in-time assessments.

Continuous compliance relies on visibility and automation working together. KeyScaler 2025 automates this by:

1. Mapping device identities to specific standards (e.g. NIST 1800-32, CRA, EO 14028).
2. Tracking configuration changes and automatically flagging deviations.
3. Generating tamper-proof audit logs for reporting and certification.

By embedding compliance logic within the platform itself, Device Authority removes the burden of manual audits, enabling organisations to demonstrate readiness instantly — a major competitive advantage when bidding for regulated contracts. Automating compliance processes also helps organisations reduce costs by minimizing manual audit efforts and avoiding regulatory fines.

Read the IoT/OT Visibility and Control Guide

How Visibility Enables Zero Trust for IoT

Zero Trust security assumes that no entity — user, device, or application — is inherently trustworthy. Every interaction must be authenticated, authorised, and encrypted. But this philosophy only works if the organisation can see every device attempting to connect.

KeyScaler 2025’s unified visibility framework feeds directly into its Zero Trust enforcement model. Each device is assigned a unique machine identity and continuously validated based on behaviour and context. If anomalies arise — such as unusual data transfer or off-hours communication — access can be instantly restricted or revoked. AI-powered Zero Trust models also help detect, investigate, and respond to sophisticated, unknown, and zero day threats in real time, enabling autonomous threat mitigation to maintain operational uptime.

This adaptive control model ensures that trust is not a one-time event but a continuous evaluation process powered by AI and automation.

Learn more about Zero Trust for IoT

The Business Value: Reducing Risk and Operational Cost

For CISOs and operational leaders, visibility is not just a technical objective — it’s a business imperative. The ability to identify and control every device, including critical OT assets, translates directly into reduced risk exposure, lower compliance costs, and improved productivity.

According to industry benchmarks, automated visibility and lifecycle control can deliver:

• Up to 80% reduction in manual device management time
• Faster incident detection, cutting average response times by over 60%
• Improved uptime through proactive remediation
• Lower insurance premiums thanks to verifiable compliance

Comprehensive visibility across all devices and OT assets also helps organizations identify potential vulnerabilities before they can be exploited, further reducing risk and supporting operational continuity.

When combined with Device Authority’s ROI Calculator, organisations can quantify the financial impact of automation — from reduced staff hours to avoided breach penalties.

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Common Pitfalls That Limit IoT/OT Visibility

While many organisations recognise the need for visibility, execution often falls short. The most common barriers include:

1. Fragmented Tools: Using multiple visibility solutions across IT and OT creates gaps and conflicting data.
2. Lack of Standardisation: Inconsistent naming conventions and certificate policies hinder automation.
3. Manual Processes: Reliance on human oversight leads to delays and blind spots.
4. Legacy Systems: Securing an OT system and industrial control systems presents unique challenges, as outdated controllers without modern security interfaces remain invisible to traditional scanners.
5. No Governance Framework: Without clear ownership between IT and OT teams, responsibility for visibility becomes diluted.

By addressing these pitfalls through centralised automation and clear governance, enterprises can transition from reactive monitoring to proactive control.

Implementing a Successful Visibility Strategy

Achieving true IoT/OT visibility requires both technology and process alignment. Sectors such as energy distribution benefit significantly from unified visibility, as automation systems and PLCs play a critical role in managing and controlling these processes. Critical infrastructure sectors have become prime targets for cyberattacks, making comprehensive visibility and monitoring essential to ensure operational security and efficiency. The most effective strategies include:

1. Unified Asset Inventory: Build a single source of truth that integrates IT, OT, and edge devices.
2. Automated Discovery: Deploy AI-based tools to continuously identify and classify assets.
3. Machine Identity Management: Assign certificates and credentials to all devices, ensuring verifiable trust.
4. Policy-Driven Control: Use contextual data to automate access and remediation decisions.
5. Continuous Compliance: Integrate monitoring with reporting frameworks to maintain readiness.
6. Cross-Functional Collaboration: Align IT security, operations, and compliance teams under a shared visibility framework.

Device Authority’s platform delivers each of these steps natively, simplifying the path from concept to implementation.

Evaluating Visibility Solutions: What to Look For

Selecting the right visibility solution for OT security is a strategic decision that can make or break your organization’s defense against cyber threats. The most effective solutions deliver comprehensive visibility across all OT environments, including unmanaged devices and those operating with unique protocols that traditional IT tools often miss.

Key factors to consider include the ability to detect and respond to potential threats in real time, leveraging advanced analytics and machine learning to identify anomalies across diverse device types. Integration is also crucial—the solution should seamlessly connect with your existing security platforms, enabling unified operations between IT and OT teams and eliminating security gaps.

Scalability is another essential consideration, as OT environments are constantly evolving with new devices and technologies. The solution must adapt to these changes without compromising visibility or performance. Finally, ensure that the platform aligns with industry standards and regulatory requirements, supporting your compliance obligations and risk management strategies.

By focusing on these criteria, organizations can gain visibility into every device, reduce the risk of cyber threats, and build a resilient security foundation for their OT systems.

Edge and Cloud Integration: Visibility Beyond the Network

The modern enterprise no longer operates within clear boundaries. IoT ecosystems now span on-premise, cloud, and edge environments. Achieving visibility therefore requires seamless integration across these domains. Seamless integration across edge and cloud environments is essential for comprehensive IoT security, ensuring that vulnerabilities unique to IoT systems are addressed with specialized security measures.

KeyScaler 2025 provides log4j vulnerability mitigation:

• Edge-aware Discovery: Detects devices operating in remote or low-bandwidth conditions.
• Cloud Connector Integration: Works with leading providers to manage identities and certificates at scale.
• API-Driven Extensibility: Allows integration with SIEM, SOAR, and asset-management platforms for unified visibility dashboards.

This hybrid approach ensures that as digital ecosystems expand, visibility remains consistent — enabling security teams to maintain control wherever data and devices reside.

Best Practices for IoT/OT Security

Securing IoT/OT devices and systems requires a proactive, layered approach built on industry best practices. Start by implementing a zero-trust security model—treating every device and user as a potential threat until proven otherwise. This means enforcing continuous verification of device identities, strict authentication, and robust access controls across your OT systems.

Real-time device discovery and monitoring are essential for identifying new or unmanaged devices and detecting potential threats as they emerge. Leverage advanced analytics and machine learning to spot unusual behavior and respond quickly. Regular security audits and risk assessments help uncover vulnerabilities and ensure that your OT devices remain properly configured and patched.

Network segmentation is another critical practice, limiting the impact of any breach and preventing attackers from moving laterally across your environment. Remote access should be tightly controlled and continuously monitored to prevent unauthorized entry points.

By following these best practices, organizations can protect critical infrastructure, ensure operational continuity, and maintain business agility—even as the number of connected devices continues to grow. This comprehensive approach to IoT/OT security not only reduces risk but also supports long-term operational resilience.

The Future of IoT/OT Visibility and Control

As the number of connected devices surpasses 50 billion globally, the importance of continuous visibility will only intensify. Future trends are already emerging:

• AI-assisted Predictive Security: Using historical telemetry to anticipate and prevent misconfigurations before they occur.
• Autonomous Compliance Engines: Systems that self-adjust to new regulatory changes.
• Digital Twin Modelling: Simulating device networks to test resilience, map attack paths, and optimise policy enforcement.

Device Authority is at the forefront of these innovations, investing in AI and automation to ensure that security keeps pace with connectivity.

Conclusion: Seeing Everything, Securing Everything

In 2025 and beyond, visibility equals control — and control equals trust. Organisations that can’t see their devices can’t protect them, comply with regulations, or maintain operational resilience.

By combining AI-powered discovery, machine identity automation, and Zero Trust enforcement, Device Authority delivers the clarity and control that modern enterprises require. With KeyScaler 2025, IoT/OT visibility becomes not just achievable but effortless — a continuous, automated process that secures every connection and strengthens every outcome.

The time for partial visibility is over. With Device Authority, you can see everything, secure everything, and trust every connection.