NCC Group [LSE: NCC]
Making the Entire Guest Environment Work as One

Unlike conventional IT systems, many operational technology environments contain equipment designed for long service lives and continuous operation. Protecting these systems requires an understanding of engineering constraints, legacy infrastructure and the potential impact of changes on industrial processes.

NCC Group brings together technical assessment, engineering expertise, consulting and incident response to help organisations identify risks and strengthen their OT security. Its services cover industrial control systems, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) environments, connected equipment and the networks linking operational assets to enterprise IT. This helps clients address cyber risks while accounting for the realities of industrial operations.

Turning Risk into Action

NCC Group's OT security practice begins with understanding what an organisation operates, how its assets communicate and where exposure could translate into business risk. Its Facility Due Diligence service provides a structured starting point, combining assessments of industrial environments with specialist expertise and OT security technology. The objective is to establish visibility, identify weaknesses and give leadership a practical basis for deciding which risks require attention first.

Industrial operators must prioritise vulnerabilities according to their potential impact on physical processes. NCC Group's assessments consider asset criticality, network architecture and operational dependencies to help organisations select appropriate security measures.

NCC Group's services span attack surface mapping, threat modelling, embedded firmware reviews, vulnerability assessments and penetration testing. Its consultants also help evaluate security architecture, improve controls and develop remediation plans suited to individual operating environments. For manufacturers and infrastructure operators, these capabilities provide a route from identifying technical weaknesses to making informed changes within existing systems.

Security must also account for functional safety. Industrial environments may contain legacy equipment that cannot be readily patched or taken offline without affecting production. NCC Group draws on Adelard, its safety consultancy, for cyber safety modelling, safety case analysis and related safety and reliability services. These capabilities help organisations assess cyber risks alongside the safety requirements of industrial processes.

NCC Group's Network Detection and Response for OT service monitors industrial network traffic for abnormal behaviour and potential threats. Its detection capabilities account for specialised OT protocols, while a shared security operations centre provides visibility across both IT and OT environments.

NCC Group has also partnered with Dragos to combine industrial cybersecurity technology with its assessment capabilities and specialist expertise. The partnership supports asset identification and risk assessment, helping organisations improve visibility into OT assets and exposure. This connects the identification of weaknesses with a clearer understanding of where protection and investment are needed.

The approach reflects the company’s consulting-led model, which connects technical findings with risk assessments, practical recommendations and remediation planning. Its manufacturing services similarly combine consulting, engineering, project management and regulatory support to help organisations introduce digital technologies while managing cyber risk.

OT Resilience in Practice

NCC Group's OT security capabilities are demonstrated by a case study involving a North American rural electric cooperative that was modernising its IT and OT infrastructure. New software, network connections and remote support arrangements introduced additional exposure, particularly around substation systems.

NCC Group's Facility Due Diligence team reviewed the cooperative's main offices and industrial control facilities, identifying unauthorised access to its Energy Management System and Distribution Management System. Both systems play important roles in managing electricity distribution, making the findings significant for the cooperative's operational security. The team worked with local engineers, examined architecture plans and conducted facility walkthroughs to understand the risks in context.

The resulting recommendations included stronger privileged access management for SCADA systems, improved mobile application security and multifactor authentication for remote access. The engagement also helped the cooperative meet the objectives of its Rural Cooperative Cybersecurity Capabilities programme and develop a three-year investment roadmap.

A separate engagement with a multinational industrial organisation illustrates the challenge of delivering consistent security testing across a large estate. The client needed assessments across several hundred network segments spanning IT and OT environments. Traditional vulnerability scanning alone provided limited assurance about the real-world exploitability of identified vulnerabilities, while manual testing was difficult to scale.

NCC Group adopted a hybrid approach that combined Horizon3.ai's NodeZero platform for automated penetration testing with expert-led testing of sensitive areas, including OT control planes. The approach improved visibility into risk across more than 100,000 assets and uncovered findings that had gone undetected in previous testing. Automation enabled testing at scale, while expert-led assessments examined attack paths and sensitive OT environments in greater depth.

Together, these engagements show how NCC Group combines technical testing, risk assessment and operational guidance across different dimensions of OT security. For over 25 years, the company has been trusted by leading organisations and governments to help them manage risk, strengthen resilience and build lasting trust in an increasingly complex and connected world. Its approach draws on experience across offensive security, defence, research and threat intelligence, supported by technical expertise, advisory capabilities and strategic partnerships across the technology ecosystem.

With a presence across the UK, Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, NCC Group's team of more than 1,800 experts works with clients, partners and the wider cybersecurity community to create a more secure digital future. The recognition of NCC Group as Top OT Security Company in Europe 2026 reflects the value of an approach that connects cybersecurity decisions with the engineering, safety and operational realities of industrial environments.