Thomas Kurian Ambattu

Critical infrastructure used to feel like someone else's problem. The grid, the water utility, the hospital network, the factory floor — these were quiet, isolated systems running quiet, isolated equipment, and most of the security industry happily left them alone. That world is gone. Years of digitisation, remote access, cloud dashboards, and the slow merging of IT with operational technology have turned every plant, substation, and control room into something that looks a lot more like a corporate network. Attackers, from ransomware crews to nation-state crews working with very different goals, figured this out long before most defenders did. This panel brings together people who actually work in this space. OT and ICS practitioners who have to keep things running, and cyber police officers and law enforcement folks who get the call when something goes wrong. We will get into where IT and OT thinking still talk past each other, what cyber policing units like Kerala Police Cyberdome are actually doing behind the scenes, and the awkward question nobody really wants to answer: when a single breach can take down services that millions of people depend on, who is actually responsible?