Trust Me, It's Air-Gapped

A cyberattack that took down grocery store refrigerators across Europe reveals that risks behind shadow IT, third-party vendor management and remote access.

GrayMatter's Scott Christensen and Jeff Dunham look at why connected devices bought outside IT’s view are a growing risk. They cover what a vendor security review should ask before procurement and discuss GrayMatter’s SOC 2 journey.

Topics covered:

• Lessons from the European grocery store refrigerator cyberattack
• Shadow IT and shadow AI in IT and OT environments
• Third-party vendor risk and security questionnaires
• SOC 2 compliance and proving that security controls work
• Network segmentation for IoT and OT devices
• Containment, visibility and recovery as core security practices
• Why IT/OT security works best as a team sport

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AI is a force multiplier for your workforce and for attackers. In this episode of Trust Me, It’s Air-Gapped, GrayMatter OT Cybersecurity Practice Lead Scott Christensen unpacks what industrial leaders are saying about AI and cyber risk.

Scott explains how AI-powered reconnaissance lets bad actors launch attacks in minutes instead of weeks. He also covers the risks growing inside the house: well-meaning employees adopting AI tools without a plan, vendors adding undisclosed AI to their products and plant-floor data flowing to the cloud without zero trust architecture.

Also discussed:

• Why every manufacturer needs a cross-functional AI working group
• Treating AI like a new employee with least-privilege access
• Keeping a human in the loop for agentic AI decisions
• Capturing tribal knowledge before your veteran operators retire
• Questions to ask vendors about their AI roadmap
• Why AI won’t replace your SOC anytime soon

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A coordinated nation-state campaign has hit more than 100 water utilities since it was first spotted near Minneapolis two months ago, prompting warnings from CISA and the FBI andtargeting one thing in particular: publicly addressable PLCs and industrial automation systems.

In this episode, GrayMatter's Cyber Practice Director Scott Christensen sits down with water and SCADA veteran Aaron Cromer, along with Zach Vera and Dan Topley from AMDT, makers of Octoplant, to unpack what's actually happening in the field.

They dig into why "we're too small to be a target" no longer holds up (it was the suburban utilities near major cities that got hit first), why claiming you're air-gapped rarely means you actually are, and why utilities should focus more on recovery. Aaron, Zach and Dan walk through what real asset awareness looks like, how change management separates a good recovery from a scramble.

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Host Scott Christensen, cyber practice director for GrayMatter, talks with Dr. Eric Dowdy, IT director and data systems manager for City of Fort Collins Water, about building an OT cybersecurity program in the aftermath of a real water sector cyber event. Dowdy, who joined the utility after the incident, shares what it took to lead recovery, win board-level support for cybersecurity funding, and break down the historic silos between IT and OT teams. The episode covers steps for any critical infrastructure organization: getting plugged into threat intelligence networks, using the NIST framework to benchmark risk as federal cyber regulations catch up to water and wastewater utilities, and building a multiyear cybersecurity roadmap instead of chasing every vulnerability at once.

What listeners will learn:

• How a water utility recovers operationally and culturally after a cyberattack
• Why board buy-in and funding are critical to sustaining an OT cybersecurity program
• Which threat intelligence sources matter most for water and wastewater utilities
• How the NIST framework helps utilities prepare for coming federal cybersecurity regulations
• How to build IT/OT collaboration instead of an adversarial "office of no" dynamic

On this episode of Trust Me, It's Air Gapped, GrayMatter's Scott Christensen breaks down three landmark OT cyberattacks, Stuxnet, the Target HVAC breach and the Jaguar Land Rover ransomware incident, to show manufacturers what actually went wrong and how to recover faster. He covers why "air-gapped" networks aren't as safe as some believe, why segmentation and zero trust matter more than ever and why mean time to recovery may be the single most important metric in OT security today. Visit us at graymattersystems.com.

Scott Christensen sits down with Sean Tufts, field CTO at Claroty and a former NFL player, for a conversation on how OT security has matured. They cover the shift from passive to active network detection, the remote access risks COVID exposed and why so many organizations expect software alone to save them without the process and documentation to back it up. Sean and Scott also dig into the looming compliance landscape (NIST CSF, NIS2 and CMMC), the workforce "silver tsunami" and the tribal knowledge crisis it's creating on plant floors, and where AI genuinely helps versus where it introduces new risk.

We are live for the first time!

Recorded in front of a live audience at GrayMatter's Think Do Leadership Summit in Chicago in June 2026, this special episode of Trust Me, It's Air-Gapped brings together a cross-section of four OT security voices for a conversation about industrial cybersecurity.

Host Scott Christensen, OT Cybersecurity Practice Lead at GrayMatter, is joined by Zach Vera, Account Manager at AMDT Octoplant; Steve Alger, Digital Transformation Lead at Lear Corporation; and Adam Shepherd, Sr. Systems Admin at REA Magnet Wire.

Together they dig into why recovery time scares practitioners (sometimes more than an attack itself), how to make the business case for cyber investment when there's no clean ROI, and what it really takes to bridge the IT/OT divide.

The panel also cuts through AI hype on the plant floor, exposes the danger of tribal knowledge and makes the case for treating cybersecurity as a long-term program — not a one-time project.

Visit us at graymattersystems.com to apply to attend our next Think Do Leadership Summits in Atlanta on Aug. 18, 2026, and Pittsburgh on Sept. 15, 2026.

In this episode of Trust Me, It's Air-Gapped, host Scott Christensen, Cyber Practice Director, GrayMatter, sits down with Alex Seibel, VP of Global Channel Sales & Strategic Alliances, AMDT — live from Warsaw, Poland — to dig into what's behind the growth of AMDT's OT cybersecurity tool, Octoplant.

What started as a backup and version control platform has evolved into a tool that leverages configuration backup data to unlock vulnerability management, asset inventory, compliance auditing and visibility. Octoplant does this without the risks that come from passive network scanning or sending sensitive OT data to the cloud.

They also cover the IT/OT divide, and why Octoplant is one of the rare tools that plant engineers and CISOs both actually want to use. Plus, Alex shares a real-world example of a global manufacturer onboarding over 4,000 devices across a production site in just two days.

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Tom Sipes, Director of Information Security at Eagle Materials, and Scott Christensen, GrayMatter Cyber Practice Director, share how they collaborated to build an OT cybersecurity program that accounted for many different types of plants and operations at Eagle Materials, a major building materials manufacturer.

From a sleepless security incident to leading a multi-year transformation, Tom walks through the challenges of securing highly distributed, acquisition-driven environments with disparate systems and limited visibility. He breaks down why traditional IT approaches fail in OT and how security decisions must always be balanced against operational impact.

The episode explores key themes shaping modern OT security:

• Why “air-gapped” is a myth in today’s connected plants
• The importance of visibility, segmentation, and controlled access
• How backup, version control and recovery readiness can prevent issues
• Why safety is the top priority in industrial environments

Most importantly, Tom emphasizes that OT security is not a one-time fix. It’s an ongoing journey.

Scott Christensen of GrayMatter and Dominic Busa from Airwall (JCI) discuss the real-world challenges of securing operational technology environments .

Scott and Dominic unpack the limitations of traditional firewall-based security and explain the shift toward identity-defined networking, micro-segmentation and zero trust. Instead of assuming that devices on the same network should trust each other, the model moves toward explicit, policy-driven communication — where Machine A can only talk to Machine B if it’s explicitly allowed .

A major theme: segmentation doesn’t have to mean disruption. Through overlay networking, manufacturers can wrap policy around existing flat networks without ripping and replacing infrastructure or taking production offline .

The episode also covers:

• Secure, time-bound remote access for OEMs and contractors

• Replacing costly private radio networks with secure cellular

• Protecting legacy, un-patchable systems through compensating controls

• Reducing public asset exposure and shrinking attack surfaces

• Embedding cybersecurity into digital transformation strategies instead of bolting it on later

If you're modernizing operations, moving data to the cloud, or expanding remote access, this episode makes one thing clear: cybersecurity isn’t a checkbox. It’s infrastructure for digital transformation. Visit graymattersystems.com.