OT Red Teaming: Complete Guide to Adversary Simulation for Industrial Control Systems [2025]

OT red teaming is a controlled simulation of how a real adversary would compromise an operational technology environment. Instead of simply checking for vulnerabilities, it demonstrates:

• How attackers move across IT → OT boundaries
• How insecure ICS/SCADA/DCS assets can be manipulated
• What process impact an attack could actually achieve
• How well your team detects and responds to threats
• Which attack paths put safety, uptime, and reliability at risk

In short: OT red teaming is the closest you can get to understanding how an attacker would target your facility—without suffering a real incident.

According to CISA's ICS advisories, sophisticated threat actors including nation-state groups are actively targeting critical infrastructure with ICS-specific techniques. Organizations need realistic adversary simulation to validate whether their defenses can actually stop these threats.

For broader context on OT security assessment methodologies, see our comprehensive OT Penetration Testing guide.

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What Is OT Red Teaming?

OT red teaming is offensive security testing that simulates complete adversary campaigns against industrial control systems. Unlike vulnerability assessments that identify individual weaknesses, red teaming chains multiple techniques together to demonstrate realistic attack scenarios from initial access through operational impact.

How OT Red Teaming Differs from IT Red Teaming

IT red teaming focuses on:

• Data exfiltration and theft
• Credential compromise and persistence
• Network access and lateral movement
• Disrupting business systems and services

OT red teaming additionally addresses:

• Physical process manipulation and safety system compromise
• Industrial protocol exploitation (Modbus, DNP3, OPC, BACnet)
• Control logic modification and equipment damage potential
• Production disruption and quality impact scenarios
• Safety instrumented system (SIS) bypass techniques

The risks—and required expertise—are fundamentally different. A successful attack in IT might cost money or reputation; in OT it could cause physical damage, environmental incidents, or threaten human safety.

Key Objectives of OT Red Team Exercises

Validate detection and response capabilities:

• Can your SOC identify adversary techniques in OT networks?
• Do alerts trigger when attackers cross IT/OT boundaries?
• How quickly can your team contain lateral movement?
• Are blue team procedures effective for OT-specific threats?

Identify exploitable attack paths:

• Which routes could adversaries use to reach critical assets?
• Where do segmentation controls fail under real attack scenarios?
• What privilege escalation opportunities exist?
• How can attackers maintain persistent access?

Assess process manipulation risk:

• What operational impact could successful attacks achieve?
• Can adversaries modify control logic or process setpoints?
• Which safety systems could be disabled or bypassed?
• What recovery time would your organization face?

Test security architecture effectiveness:

• Do network segmentation strategies actually prevent lateral movement?
• Are remote access controls sufficient against determined adversaries?
• Can monitoring systems detect subtle process manipulation?
• Do incident response procedures work for OT scenarios?

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The Rise of OT Red Team Simulation Tools

As OT environments grow more connected and adversaries develop ICS-specific capabilities, organizations need safer, more repeatable ways to test their defenses. Traditional red teaming on live OT systems introduces unacceptable operational risk. That's where OT red team simulation tools provide a critical evolution.

What Is an OT Red Team Simulation Tool?

An OT red team simulation tool is software that:

• Replicates attacker behavior using tactics and techniques from MITRE ATT&CK for ICS
• Simulates exploit paths inside OT networks showing complete attack chains
• Models process manipulation and operational impact scenarios
• Tests SOC/blue team readiness across IT/OT boundaries
• Evaluates security controls including segmentation, access controls, and detection
• Runs safely using digital twins instead of touching live production systems

This represents the modern approach to understanding OT security posture—accurate, safe, and repeatable.

Why This Matters Now

Industrial organizations face mounting threats that make adversary simulation essential:

Expanding attack surface:

• Remote access has exploded post-pandemic, creating new entry points
• IT/OT convergence increases connectivity without proportional security
• Cloud integrations and IIoT devices expand the boundary
• Supply chain access provides adversary footholds

Architectural vulnerabilities:

• Many OT networks remain flat without proper segmentation
• Legacy PLCs and HMIs lack built-in security features
• Safety systems often excluded from security monitoring
• Air gaps are frequently bridged for convenience

Sophisticated adversaries:

• Nation-state groups (Sandworm, Volt Typhoon) actively targeting critical infrastructure
• ICS-specific malware (TRITON, Industroyer, Pipedream) demonstrates advanced capabilities
• Ransomware groups increasingly impacting OT operations
• AI-assisted adversaries accelerate reconnaissance and exploitation

Regulatory requirements:

• NERC CIP standards requiring security validation
• TSA Pipeline Security Directives mandating specific controls
• IEC 62443 emphasizing security by design
• Insurance requirements for proof of security testing

For most industrial facilities, the reality is stark: You don't know how vulnerable you are until you simulate a real attack.

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How OT Red Teaming Works: Complete Methodology

Effective OT red team exercises follow a structured approach that balances realism with operational safety.

Phase 1: Scoping & Environment Modeling

Define exercise objectives:

• Specific threat scenarios to simulate (ransomware, sabotage, espionage)
• Target systems and processes in scope
• Acceptable risk levels and safety constraints
• Success criteria and deliverable expectations

Model the OT environment:

• Level 0–3 Purdue model architecture (sensors, controllers, supervisory systems)
• Asset inventory including PLCs, RTUs, HMIs, historians, safety systems, engineering workstations
• Network topology, segmentation, and firewall rules
• Existing security controls and monitoring capabilities
• Critical dependencies and safety-critical systems

Phase 2: Reconnaissance & Attack Path Discovery

Initial access simulation:

• Phishing campaigns targeting engineering staff
• Remote access exploitation (VPN, remote desktop, vendor connections)
• Supply chain compromise scenarios
• Vulnerable internet-facing services

Attack surface mapping:

• Identify every possible route adversaries could take
• Map trust relationships and privilege escalation opportunities
• Document lateral movement paths from IT to OT
• Discover unmonitored communication channels

Phase 3: Exploitation & Lateral Movement

Privilege escalation:

• Exploit misconfigurations in Active Directory
• Leverage weak credentials on engineering workstations
• Abuse trust relationships between IT and OT networks
• Compromise service accounts with excessive permissions

Protocol-level exploitation:

• Modbus TCP command injection
• DNP3 protocol manipulation
• OPC UA authentication bypass
• EtherNet/IP exploitation
• BACnet device enumeration and control

Cross-boundary movement:

• Bypass firewall rules and DMZ controls
• Exploit bridged IT/OT connections
• Leverage remote access pathways
• Use living-off-the-land techniques in OT environments

Phase 4: Process Manipulation & Impact Assessment

Control system compromise:

• Modify PLC logic and control programs
• Alter setpoints and operational parameters
• Disable safety interlocks and protective systems
• Force equipment into unsafe states
• Inject malicious commands via HMI interfaces

Operational impact modeling:

• Production disruption scenarios and downtime estimates
• Quality impact from process parameter changes
• Equipment damage potential and recovery time
• Safety system bypass consequences
• Environmental and regulatory violation risks

All testing occurs in digital twin environments—no production impact.

Phase 5: Detection & Response Evaluation

Blue team assessment:

• Can your SOC identify the techniques being used?
• Do alerts trigger at appropriate points in the attack chain?
• How long does detection and response take?
• Are communication procedures effective during OT incidents?

Gap identification:

• Blind spots in monitoring coverage
• Missing detection signatures for ICS protocols
• Insufficient logging on critical assets
• Ineffective correlation rules across IT/OT boundaries

Phase 6: Reporting & Remediation Roadmap

Deliverables include:

• Executive summary with business risk context
• Detailed attack path documentation with technical evidence
• Process impact assessment and operational consequences
• Detection and response performance analysis
• Prioritized remediation recommendations
• Tactical mitigations implementable immediately
• Strategic architecture improvements for long-term security

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OT Red Teaming vs Traditional Penetration Testing

Understanding the distinction helps organizations select the right assessment approach for their needs.

The key difference: Penetration testing finds weaknesses. Red teaming shows consequences.

Simulation tooling gives industrial security teams repeatability, safety, and operational insight traditional methods cannot match.

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Frenos: Purpose-Built OT Red Team Simulation Platform

Frenos is an OT red team simulation tool designed specifically for industrial control systems—not generic IT networks. It combines digital twin modeling, process-aware attack paths, and real OT threat intelligence to safely demonstrate how adversaries could compromise your systems.

Key Capabilities

✓ Digital Twin-Powered Simulation Run complete adversary campaigns safely on a virtual replica of your facility. Test destructive scenarios including ransomware, safety system manipulation, and process sabotage without any production risk.

✓ Automated OT Attack Path Mapping Visualize how adversaries move from initial compromise through IT/OT boundaries to critical assets. Identify every exploitable route including remote access, privilege escalation, and lateral movement paths.

✓ Process Manipulation Modeling Understand real operational consequences—production downtime, equipment damage potential, safety system impacts, quality degradation—without touching live PLCs or HMIs.

✓ OT-Specific Exploit Library Techniques aligned with ICS threat intelligence and recent real-world incidents. Continuously updated based on CISA advisories, Dragos threat intelligence, and emerging attack patterns.

✓ SOC & Blue Team Readiness Testing Measure detection and response capabilities across IT/OT boundaries. Identify blind spots, validate alert configurations, and assess incident response effectiveness for OT-specific scenarios.

✓ SAIRA: AI-Powered Adversary Agent Simulated Adversarial Intelligence & Reasoning Agent autonomously explores attack paths, chains exploits, and optimizes techniques—mimicking how sophisticated adversaries actually operate.

✓ Clear, Actionable Reporting Engineer-friendly findings with OT-focused remediation steps. Prioritized recommendations that operations and security teams can implement immediately.

With Frenos, teams can run full-chain attacker scenarios without disrupting operations—something traditional red teams and penetration tests cannot offer at scale.

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Primary Use Cases for OT Red Team Simulation

Organizations across critical infrastructure sectors use red team simulation to address specific security challenges.

Validate network segmentation effectiveness:

• Test whether Purdue model zone boundaries actually prevent lateral movement
• Identify firewall rule weaknesses and unintended communication paths
• Validate DMZ controls between IT and OT networks
• Assess effectiveness of unidirectional gateways and data diodes

Test monitoring and detection capabilities:

• Verify SOC visibility into OT environments
• Validate alert configurations for ICS-specific threats
• Identify gaps in logging coverage across critical assets
• Assess correlation rules for detecting multi-stage attacks

Assess vendor and remote access risk:

• Simulate compromise via vendor remote access connections
• Test third-party access controls and session monitoring
• Evaluate risk from supply chain relationships
• Validate remote access security architectures

Measure blue team performance:

• Test incident response procedures with realistic OT scenarios
• Evaluate communication effectiveness during simulated incidents
• Assess mean time to detect and mean time to respond
• Identify training needs and procedural gaps

Evaluate OT incident response:

• Validate response procedures work for OT-specific incidents
• Test coordination between IT, OT, and operations teams
• Assess forensic capabilities in industrial environments
• Identify improvements needed before real incidents occur

Prepare for regulatory audits:

• Demonstrate security control effectiveness for NERC CIP compliance
• Provide evidence for TSA Pipeline Security Directive requirements
• Validate security-by-design per IEC 62443 standards
• Support internal audit and risk assessment programs

Understand process-level consequences:

• Model operational impact of successful cyber attacks
• Assess recovery time and business continuity implications
• Evaluate safety system vulnerabilities and bypass potential
• Inform business risk discussions with quantifiable scenarios

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Who Benefits Most from OT Red Team Simulation

Directors of OT/ICS Security: Demonstrate actual security posture to executives with quantifiable risk scenarios. Justify security investments with evidence of exploitable attack paths and operational consequences.

OT Security Architects: Validate security architecture design decisions before implementation. Test segmentation strategies, access controls, and monitoring approaches against realistic adversary techniques.

Plant Managers & Reliability Leads: Understand cyber risks to uptime, safety, and production quality. Prioritize security investments based on actual operational impact rather than theoretical vulnerabilities.

Critical Infrastructure Security Teams: Meet regulatory requirements for security validation. Prepare for sophisticated nation-state threats targeting energy, water, manufacturing, and other essential services.

IT/OT Convergence Teams: Identify security gaps introduced by increasing connectivity. Validate that IT security controls extend effectively into OT environments without creating operational blind spots.

Industrial Cybersecurity Programs: Mature from vulnerability management to threat-informed defense. Build security strategies based on realistic adversary capabilities and actual attack paths.

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Is It Safe to Run OT Red Team Simulations?

Yes. Frenos' digital twin approach ensures:

✓ No production impact - All testing occurs in virtual environments
✓ No asset downtime - Production systems never touched
✓ No logic changes on real PLCs - Control programs remain unmodified
✓ No risk to safety systems - Safety instrumented systems not exposed
✓ Repeatable test cycles without disruption - Run scenarios continuously

Safety is built into the core of the product. Organizations can simulate destructive scenarios including ransomware deployment, safety system manipulation, and process sabotage that would be impossible to test safely on live systems.

This enables comprehensive security validation that traditional red teaming—which must touch production systems—cannot safely provide in operational OT environments.

For detailed comparison of testing approaches, see Why Your Next OT Penetration Test Should Be Simulated.

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Getting Started with OT Red Team Simulation

Implementation Roadmap

Phase 1: Assessment & Planning (Weeks 1-2)

• Define specific security questions and threat scenarios
• Identify critical systems and processes in scope
• Gather existing asset inventories and network documentation
• Establish success criteria and stakeholder alignment

Phase 2: Environment Modeling (Weeks 2-4)

• Create digital twin of OT environment
• Validate model accuracy against known architecture
• Configure monitoring and detection capabilities
• Establish baseline security posture metrics

Phase 3: Simulation Execution (Weeks 4-6)

• Run adversary scenarios across attack surfaces
• Test detection and response capabilities
• Model process manipulation impacts
• Document findings and evidence

Phase 4: Analysis & Remediation (Weeks 6-8)

• Prioritize findings by operational risk
• Develop tactical and strategic remediation plans
• Validate fixes in digital twin before production
• Establish continuous assessment cadence

Typical timeline: 2–8 weeks depending on environment size and testing depth.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How is OT red teaming different from vulnerability assessments?

Vulnerability assessments identify individual weaknesses (unpatched systems, misconfigurations, known CVEs). Red teaming chains multiple techniques together to demonstrate complete attack scenarios from initial access through operational impact. It shows not just what vulnerabilities exist, but which ones adversaries can actually exploit and what consequences they could achieve.

Does OT red team simulation help with compliance?

Yes. Red team exercises support multiple regulatory frameworks including NIST Cybersecurity Framework, IEC 62443, NERC CIP, TSA Security Directives, and internal audit requirements. Simulation-based approaches provide comprehensive evidence of security control effectiveness while avoiding the operational risk of traditional testing.

Can we run red team exercises on our legacy systems?

Digital twin simulation enables comprehensive testing of legacy systems that are too fragile for traditional red teaming. You can safely simulate attacks against decades-old PLCs, proprietary protocols, and safety-critical systems that could never be tested on live equipment.

How often should we conduct OT red team exercises?

Traditional red teaming occurs annually due to operational constraints and costs. Simulation-based approaches enable continuous or on-demand testing—monthly, quarterly, or triggered by environmental changes. Many organizations maintain ongoing adversary simulation with periodic deep-dive exercises.

What's the difference between red team and blue team exercises?

Red teams simulate adversaries attacking your systems. Blue teams defend, detect, and respond to those attacks. Effective programs include both—red team simulation reveals attack paths and blue team performance, while blue team training improves detection and response capabilities that red teams then validate.

Do we need special expertise to run OT red team simulations?

Frenos' platform automates much of the technical expertise required for OT red teaming. However, interpreting results, prioritizing findings, and implementing remediations benefit from ICS security knowledge. Many organizations combine internal OT expertise with Frenos' automated adversary simulation.

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The Future of OT Red Teaming

As operational technology faces increasingly sophisticated threats, red team simulation is evolving from annual exercises to continuous security validation.

Emerging capabilities:

• AI-powered adversary evolution - Agents that adapt tactics based on defender responses
• Threat intelligence integration - Automatic testing of new threat actor techniques against your environment
• Continuous autonomous red teaming - Always-on adversary simulation validating security posture
• Predictive risk modeling - Forecasting how future vulnerabilities will impact your specific systems

According to Gartner's Hype Cycle for Security Operations, continuous threat exposure management is reaching mainstream adoption as organizations move beyond point-in-time assessments to real-time security validation.

The question isn't whether to adopt OT red team simulation, but how quickly you can implement it to stay ahead of adversaries targeting your industrial environments.

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Take Action: Start OT Red Team Simulation

Traditional red teaming provides valuable insights but introduces unacceptable operational risk in live OT environments. Modern simulation-based approaches enable comprehensive adversary testing without production impact—revealing attack paths, operational consequences, and detection gaps that vulnerability assessments alone cannot uncover.

 

Ready to understand how adversaries could compromise your OT environment?

 

Learn more about OT security assessment:

• OT Penetration Testing: Complete Guide - Comprehensive overview of assessment methodologies
• Why Your Next OT Penetration Test Should Be Simulated - Digital twin advantages for security testing