Operational Technology Briefing — July 9, 2024

Executive briefing: On July 9, 2024, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published the final Guide to Operational Technology (OT) Security — Special Publication 800-82 Revision 3. The update replaces the 2015 ICS guidance with expanded coverage for industrial IoT, building automation, and distributed energy resources. Zeph Tech is translating the release into governance and detection runbooks so critical infrastructure owners can execute quickly.

Key updates in SP 800-82 Rev. 3

NIST re-scoped the publication beyond traditional ICS to encompass OT assets spanning manufacturing, utilities, transportation, and smart building systems, including virtualized controllers and cloud-managed services.
Annexes and control mappings now align to NIST CSF 2.0, SP 800-53 Rev. 5, SP 800-82’s updated glossary, and the Zero Trust principles formalized in SP 800-207 for OT network zones.
The guide adds procurement, supply chain, and remote connectivity guardrails, stressing multi-factor access, rigorous change management, and software bill of materials (SBOM) expectations for vendors.

Control alignment

NIST CSF 2.0 Govern & Protect. Update OT risk registers, asset inventories, and segmentation policies so the new NIST mappings flow into board-level governance metrics.
ISA/IEC 62443-2-1 & 3-3. Use the refreshed reference architectures to validate zone/conduit design, safety instrumented system boundaries, and security level requirements.
NERC CIP-010-4. Integrate configuration baselines, vulnerability assessments, and documented change controls for BES cyber systems with the lifecycle practices called out in SP 800-82 Rev. 3.

Detection and response priorities

Instrument continuous monitoring on remote access jump hosts, historian traffic, and fieldbus gateways; baseline command patterns against MITRE ATT&CK for ICS to surface lateral movement and privilege escalation.
Correlate vendor remote service sessions, maintenance windows, and firmware updates in SIEM or data lake pipelines to accelerate incident response triage.
Exercise OT incident response playbooks that coordinate IT SOC, engineering, and safety teams, including simulated loss of view/loss of control scenarios.

Enablement moves

Refresh procurement and vendor risk questionnaires to require SBOM access, vulnerability disclosure timelines, and evidence of secure development practices.
Update tabletop exercises and RACI matrices so operations, compliance, and supply chain owners can execute the new governance tasks without delays.
Prioritize telemetry integrations that capture firmware integrity, secure boot status, and network segmentation drift across OT zones.

Sources

Zeph Tech’s OT practice is building inventory baselines, vendor governance workflows, and detection content packages aligned to SP 800-82 Rev. 3 so operators can prove resilience.