Growing use of social engineering capabilities by cyber adversaries across OT (operational technology) environments is driving a new class of high-consequence threats that threaten the stability of critical systems. Deception, technical compromise, and human manipulation are being combined in ways that abuse the traditional trust models on which industrial systems rely, leaving asset owners and operators to face new and emerging threats and attacks. While conventional IT breaches typically lead to data loss or financial fraud, a successful social engineering attack across OT installations has the potential to shut down production, interrupt critical services, and even threaten public safety.

With the expanding IT/OT footprint, the attack surface is increasingly providing attackers additional opportunities to compromise targets by stealing credentials, impersonating trusted insiders, and moving laterally from one system to another inside the network. AI-driven phishing, voice cloning, and deepfake-enabled pretexting are lowering the barrier to entry, enabling cyber adversaries to deploy powerful tools that have the potential to erode the reliability of human judgment across critical infrastructure installations.

Microsoft security researchers warn that a single compromise, say via a contractor’s infected laptop, can breach previously isolated OT systems, turning them into a breach gateway...