According to the SANS Institute 2025 State of Operational Technology and Cybersecurity Report, over 22% of organizations (one in five) experienced an OT cybersecurity incident, with many resulting in operational disruption.
If this is not enough to keep network and IoT technologists up at night, consider this: remote access was responsible for half of all incidents (only 13%, according to the report, have implemented advanced controls).
This sets off a series of uncertainties: Can you field teams access the data they need right now? Will aging equipment fail at the worst possible moment? Could someone on the outside access our data via an Internet of Things (IoT) device?
You’re not alone in asking these questions.
We are seeing 2026 becoming the year when sabotaging industrial operations moved from theoretical risk to a clear and present danger. According to TXOne Networks’ 2026 Annual OT/ICS Cybersecurity Report, 60% of organizations experienced OT cybersecurity incidents in 2025, with the majority originating from the IT side before cascading into operational technology environments. As nation-state actors, ransomware groups, and hacktivists continue to double down on critical infrastructure, adversaries aren’t as interested in stealing data as they are actively mapping control systems, testing operational disruption capabilities, and preparing for high-impact sabotage.
In an era of heightened geopolitical tension and accelerating IT/OT convergence, the ability to remotely manipulate physical processes has never been more accessible to determined attackers, making robust, invisible zero trust protection essential.
Operators in oil and gas, agriculture, energy, and utilities are facing:
- Aging equipment deployed years ago that still need to run reliably in extreme temperatures, dust, and remote locations with zero local IT support
- Productivity lags when workers and systems can’t get real-time data fast enough across distributed sites
- Looming cyber threats where hackers could reach your network, even through “secure” connections.
Your network’s greatest secret: It doesn’t matter how good your code is if it can’t connect reliably and securely.
Traditional approaches create friction. Firewalls you don’t control. IT teams requiring change requests. VPNs and APNs that introduce latency, single points of failure, and incomplete visibility.
There is a better way.
The FreeWave Zentry™ security solution embeds operational zero trust directly into your connectivity layer. It creates outbound-only encrypted connections that work across any network — no firewall rule changes, no lengthy IT coordination.
One integration, and your software connects securely to central systems from day one, whether you have 10 sites or 10,000.
Companies using this approach are slashing deployment timelines from weeks to hours and eliminating entire categories of support tickets.
If your operations involve distributed assets in challenging environments, don’t lose sleep over connectivity and security issues. Remote access is a 2026 problem that the FreeWave Zentry solution solves as the threat landscape expands.
