What Frenos’s Gartner ® Cool Vendor Recognition Means for OT Security

Frenos has been recognized as a Gartner® Cool Vendor in the Coolest Vendor Innovations in Cyber-Physical Systems Security, 2026 report. The recognition comes as critical infrastructure organizations need to quickly understand how their defenses could withstand an attack from AI enabled cyber threats looking to disrupt their operational technology (OT) reliability.

For Frenos, the recognition reflects a different approach to OT security validation. By combining cyber digital twins, AI-driven adversary simulation, and simulated OT penetration testing, organizations can move beyond identifying vulnerabilities to determine which attack paths are actually exploitable. This provides security and operations teams with evidence they can use to prioritize risk while keeping testing away from live production systems.

What Is a Gartner ® Cool Vendor?

Gartner Cool Vendor research highlights companies considered innovative, impactful, and intriguing within specific technology markets. These reports help technology leaders identify emerging vendors, understand new approaches, and evaluate solutions that address challenges in ways established technologies do not. The 2026 report focuses on innovations in cyber-physical systems security as organizations adapt to more connected and complex operational environments.

Why Cyber-Physical Systems Security Is Evolving

Cyber-physical systems bring digital access and physical operations into the same risk equation. Security decisions can affect production, equipment, safety, and service availability, leaving little room for testing methods that introduce uncertainty.

The challenge is no longer simply finding assets or cataloging vulnerabilities. OT teams also need to know how an attacker might move between connected systems, which defenses could stop that movement, and whether critical operations are at risk.

Rethinking OT Penetration Testing

Traditional penetration testing relies on interacting with real systems to uncover weaknesses and demonstrate their impact. In an active plant, utility, or other critical setting, those methods may interfere with sensitive equipment or processes. Even a technically successful test can create unacceptable operational consequences.

Frenos was built by OT practitioners to address this challenge through simulated penetration testing. Its approach allows teams to examine adversary behavior within a digital representation of their environment, avoiding attacks on production systems. This work also earned Frenos a [$1.1 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy’s CESER office](https://frenos.io/resource/doe-ceser-sentry-award-energy-infrastructure-security) to advance OT cybersecurity and threat-emulation research for energy infrastructure.

From Identified Vulnerabilities to Prioritized OT Risk

Not every vulnerability creates the same operational exposure or requires the same response. Frenos evaluates findings in the context of existing access points, configurations, and security controls to determine where action matters most.

This gives OT teams a clearer basis for remediation. They can focus on changes that interrupt meaningful risk and avoid unnecessary work where defenses are already effective.

The Innovation Behind Frenos’s Recognition

The Frenos platform combines a cyber digital twin with AI-driven adversary simulation to examine how attacks could unfold across an OT environment. The model accounts for details such as assets, firewall rules, routing, and existing security controls, giving the analysis context that a standalone vulnerability scan cannot provide.

[At the S4x26 POC Pavilion](https://frenos.io/resource/s4x26-case-study), Frenos applied this approach to live network data from three assumed-breach starting points across enterprise and operational areas. The platform ran 154,000 attack-path simulations in just over 17 minutes and identified 18 validated paths into critical Rockwell and Siemens zones.

The significance is not just the number or speed of simulations, but the ability to translate OT data into evidence showing where defenses work, where exposure remains, and which findings deserve attention first.

What Being Named a Gartner ® Cool Vendor Means for OT Security Leaders

Frenos’s inclusion in the Gartner research signals growing attention to a more evidence-driven model for cyber-physical systems security. Visibility and vulnerability data remain foundational, but OT leaders need a practical way to determine what those findings mean for their own architecture.

Simulated testing gives security, engineering, and operations teams a shared view of risk based on how their systems and controls work together. As OT environments change, that evidence supports more confident decisions about where to focus resources and strengthen resilience.

Read the [official press release](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260922308284/en/Frenos-Named-a-Cool-Vendor-in-the-2026-Gartner-Coolest-Vendor-Innovations-in-Cyber-Physical-Systems-Security-Report) for more information about Frenos being named a Gartner® Cool Vendor.

See Every Attack Path with Frenos OT Penetration Testing Services

See how Frenos uses a cyber digital twin and AI-driven Attack Path Analysis to reveal exploitable routes across an OT environment without testing live production systems. [Start with a 1-Day Simulated OT Pen Test](https://frenos.io/service/1-day-simulated-ot-pen-test) and see what an attacker could reach before they do.