Protecting the People Who Protect Critical Infrastructure

Connected sensors, wearable technologies, zero trust architectures and operational platforms are converging to create a new model for protecting workers, critical infrastructure and industrial environments in real time.

By: Dave Dimlich
President of SD3IT

Worker safety has always been a priority in industrial, infrastructure and military settings. But it’s no longer a matter of physical protections or ensuring that operational technology (OT) is safe. As OT and IT systems have merged, and OT systems that were once isolated are now connected to the internet, worker safety has also become an IT challenge.

That shift is driving the emergence of a broader operational protection ecosystem, one where wearable technologies, environmental monitoring, machine communications, operational platforms and cybersecurity controls all work together in real time to improve both safety and resilience.

The result is a more connected approach to operational protection, where organizations can see risks earlier, respond faster and make better decisions before small problems become major incidents.

OT Security Becomes a Bigger Job

Unlike traditional IT environments, OT directly interacts with the physical world. OT systems open valves, regulate pressure, manage electrical output, guide robotics and control industrial processes. This involves a wide range of industries, from petrochemical facilities and mining operations to logistics hubs and electric vehicle manufacturing, as well as the military, where a lot of critical support systems use OT.

Industrial control systems (ICS), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) platforms and connected operational infrastructure were designed to keep fuel flowing, power grids operating and manufacturing lines moving. Security discussions around OT have, naturally, involved protecting systems from disruption or cyberattack.

But when something fails in OT, the consequences are not limited to data loss or downtime. Human safety is often at risk. That’s why OT security has always prioritized availability, integrity and physical safety—especially human safety. In fact, The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Guide to Operational Technology Security in listing its core principles, starts with “People First.” The guide states, “The primary goal of OT security is always protecting human life and physical assets from malfunctioning or compromised control systems.”

Today, however, protecting human safety extends beyond OT systems. As operational environments have become more connected, the risk landscape has expanded significantly. The convergence of IT and OT—IT systems connecting to machinery, industrial controls and other OT systems to increase efficiency via visibility and analysis—has created enormous operational advantages. But these efforts have also expanded the attack surface, exposing previously isolated systems to broader cyber threats. A compromised SCADA platform or ICS can now be used to endanger the environment or put workers’ lives at risk.

This is happening at a time when attacks on critical infrastructure are on the rise, often exploiting exposed access points and putting employees at risk. These kind of attacks can also potentially impact the general populace by harming critical infrastructure like water and power systems. Attacks by Iran-affiliated cyber actors have also increased since the start of the Iran conflict, according to a joint report by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government bodies.

But cyberattacks are far from the only area of concern regarding safety. Everyday operations can put employees at risk. Visibility into the human environment matters just as much as visibility into machines and networks.

Making the Invisible Visible

One company helping to push that evolution forward is Deeper Breath AI, an SD3IT partner focused on connected environmental and worker protection technologies. They make workers’ devices safer using sensor technology and connectivity that provides visibility across an entire operation.

As Deeper Breath CEO Dustin Wish explains, many of the greatest operational dangers (such as gases or fumes) are threats that workers cannot immediately see. “A lot of what we do is to make the invisible visible,” Wish said.

The company’s technologies focus on airborne threat detection, hazardous particulate monitoring, toxic gas identification and environmental sensing. Its connected devices range from advanced masks to what Wish describes as the thinnest gas detector in the world, roughly the size of a credit card and wearable on a lanyard, to larger sensors that can be mounted on vehicles or drones.

But the real value is not just individual sensors. It’s the fusion of data across an entire operational environment.

Environmental readings can be layered together with biometric information, environmental conditions and operational data to create a much more complete picture of what workers are experiencing in real time. In effect, every connected worker becomes a sensing node contributing to a broader operational awareness platform.

The technology is also expanding beyond traditional industrial use cases. Systems can, for example, identify environmental conditions associated with lithium-ion battery thermal runaway—a self-perpetuating, uncontrollable reaction that produces excessive heat in batteries, possibly leading to system failures, fires or explosions—helping organizations detect potentially dangerous electric vehicle battery events before they become catastrophic.

This is where OT safety begins to evolve into something much larger than PPE compliance or isolated monitoring tools. It becomes a real-time operational intelligence capability.

Connected Protection Requires Trusted Infrastructure

Part of the challenge, of course, is that connected safety systems also create new cyber exposure.

Every sensor, wearable, drone-mounted monitor or connected device becomes part of the operational attack surface. If organizations are going to ensure worker protection, they must also ensure that the communications, identities and data flowing behind them can be trusted.

That is where secure machine identity controls and zero trust architectures (ZTAs) become critical.

SD3IT partner Corsha specializes in securing machine-to-machine communications inside operational environments through identity-based access controls and zero trust principles. For example, industrial systems are isolated or air-gapped with little or no access controls. As they become increasingly interconnected, verifying trusted communications between those devices becomes essential to both operational integrity and worker safety.

This convergence of operational safety and cybersecurity is becoming one of the defining challenges of modern OT environments. Cyber incidents in industrial settings are no longer strictly digital events. Increasingly, they can produce direct physical consequences. Organizations can’t afford siloed thinking. Safety systems, operational systems and cybersecurity systems can no longer operate independently.

Integration Matters More Than Ever

This is also why integration has become so important. Most organizations don’t really benefit from standalone technologies anymore. They need multiple systems working together securely across operational environments that may include legacy infrastructure, remote deployments, edge computing, cloud services and mobile users.

That is where SD3IT comes into play, providing servers and other technology to integrate multiple systems, whether on premises or in the cloud. As Wish put it, “We’re the front line, they’re the back of the house.”

A company like Deeper Breath may provide the connected sensing technologies, but those systems still require secure infrastructure, operational platforms, cloud or on-prem environments and scalable integration architectures. SD3IT helps bring those elements together into operationally resilient ecosystems.

That role becomes increasingly important as organizations adopt open architectures and integrate multiple technologies across industrial and defense environments. The future of OT protection will not be defined by a single device or platform. It will be defined—like many other environments—by ecosystems.

The Next Phase of Operational Resilience

The evolution underway in OT environments reflects a broader operational reality. Organizations are no longer simply protecting infrastructure. They are protecting the people, systems and operational continuity that infrastructure supports. Connected safety technologies, environmental intelligence, artificial intelligence-driven analytics and zero trust operational architectures are beginning to converge into a more unified operational protection strategy.

That convergence has major implications for defense operations, critical infrastructure, manufacturing, logistics and emergency response environments alike. Operational resilience isn’t just about uptime. It is about maintaining trust, visibility and safety across increasingly connected environments.

As operational environments continue to evolve, organizations will increasingly need integrated ecosystems that combine connected sensing technologies, trusted machine communications and resilient infrastructure into coordinated operational solutions. Partnerships between companies such as Deeper Breath, Corsha and SD3IT represent an important step in that direction, bringing together worker safety, environmental awareness, zero trust security and operational integration into a coordinated approach designed to protect both people and the critical systems they rely on.

Because in the next generation of OT environments, safety and cybersecurity will no longer operate separately. They will function as part of the same mission-critical ecosystem, and organizations will increasingly need trusted partners capable of bringing those technologies together into secure, operationally resilient solutions.

About SD3IT

Solution Driven, Designed and Delivered Technology (SD3IT) delivers secure, resilient technology integration solutions supporting defense, government and commercial operations. The company specializes in cybersecurity, operational technology integration, zero trust architectures and mission-critical infrastructure modernization. Learn more at SD3IT.