Report by Palo Alto Networks

State of Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Report

11 FINDINGSPublished Oct 6, 2026
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Key Findings

Organizations use an average of seven disparate security systems and tools to monitor and identify risk.

Security OperationsToolingCritical infrastructure

74% of organizations have not fully integrated IT and OT security operations across their organization.

IT/OT ConvergenceSecurity OperationsCritical infrastructure

95% of critical infrastructure leaders express concern about Frontier AI-powered attacks on critical infrastructure.

AI ThreatsCritical Infrastructure

91% of critical infrastructure leaders expect AI-driven cybersecurity to play a role in defending against exploits accelerated by Frontier AI models.

AI SecurityCritical infrastructure

53% of organizations have policy enforcement and access controls in place across connected assets and users.

Access ControlNetwork SegmentationCritical infrastructure

42% of organizations name legacy, unpatchable OT assets as their single biggest cybersecurity risk.

Legacy SystemsOperational TechnologyCyber RiskCritical infrastructure

92% of critical infrastructure leaders say alert prioritization is important or critical.

Alert PrioritizationOperational RiskCritical infrastructure

50% of critical infrastructure leaders still rely on CVSS scores or manual review for alert prioritization.

Alert PrioritizationVulnerability ScoringCVSSCritical infrastructure

40% of organizations have virtual patching or other immediate compensating controls in place.

Virtual PatchingIncident ResponseCritical infrastructure

68% of critical infrastructure organizations do not have complete, real-time visibility of all assets connected to their OT networks.

Operational TechnologyAsset VisibilityCritical infrastructure

60% of organizations suffered a significant security breach in the past year.

Data BreachOperational RiskCritical infrastructure