OT, ICS & SCADA field guides · AI threat

AI Attacks on OT & Critical Infrastructure by Kai London

A short, direct briefing on what AI actually changes for industrial defenders — which parts of the threat model need rewriting, which controls hold regardless, and where the honest uncertainty lies. Written to be read before the next planning cycle, not after the next incident.

Available on Amazon.

What is inside

What AI actually changes

Speed, scale and accessibility of attack capability — separated clearly from what is still marketing.

Reconnaissance and social engineering

Targeting engineers, contractors and operators with material that no longer reads as a phishing email.

Protocol and process abuse

Where machine assistance lowers the expertise barrier for manipulating industrial protocols and logic.

Rewriting the threat model

Updating assumptions about attacker skill, dwell time and the credibility of what an operator sees.

Controls that still hold

Segmentation, safety systems, physical interlocks and manual operation — the defences indifferent to attacker sophistication.

What to brief upward

A concise, non-alarmist account for executives and regulators asking what your AI exposure really is.

Who it is for: OT security leaders and ICS engineers, plant and operations managers, CISOs in critical national infrastructure, and boards who need the AI question answered without theatre.

IEC 62443NIST SP 800-82MITRE ATT&CK for ICSNIS2NIST AI RMF

The attack got cheaper. The consequence did not change. Defend the consequence.

About the author

Professor Kai London — CISSP, CISM.

An internationally recognised cybersecurity executive, board advisor and Founder & CEO of Quantum AI Systems Security LLC, writing at the convergence of AI, governance and operational resilience. Honorary Professor and Researcher at UCL.