Proposal for an OT Incident Impact Score Modeled on Natural-Disaster Severity Scales
A new proposal to standardize how operational technology (OT) cyber incidents are communicated and compared is being promoted as an “OT Incident Impact Score”, using a numerical severity model inspired by natural-disaster scales (e.g., earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires). Proponents say OT incidents are frequently misunderstood by non-specialists, leading to fear, uncertainty, doubt (FUD) and threat inflation, and argue that a consistent scoring approach could improve executive and cross-sector decision-making in critical infrastructure.
Munish Walther-Puri (TPO Group; IANS Research faculty) described the concept as analogous to the Richter scale but incorporating peer review and lessons from established disaster-impact measurement systems. OT security practitioner Dale Peterson warned that poor understanding of OT incident severity can drive misallocation of resources and distorted risk prioritization, underscoring the need for clearer, more comparable impact communication; however, the effort is described as facing an uphill climb to broad adoption across critical infrastructure sectors.
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How this story unfolded
4 events from the most recent confirmed update back to the earliest known activity.
Organizers set plan for public OT incident scoring
Project organizers said they aim to publish initial public scores within 12 hours of an OT incident and revise them as more facts emerge. They also discussed possible future refinements such as weighted scoring and trusted "super-users" to improve consistency.
Proof-of-concept OT incident scoring site is launched
A proof-of-concept site for the crowdsourced scoring initiative was launched, allowing OT security professionals to rate historic incidents across severity, reach, and duration, with outliers removed before averaging results. The ICS Advisory Project, founded by Dan Ricci, hosted the site initially.
OT Incident Impact Score concept is proposed
Munish Walther-Puri proposed the concept of an "OT Incident Impact Score," a simple 1-10 framework for communicating the real-world severity of OT cyber incidents to non-technical audiences. Dale Peterson subsequently advanced the idea within the OT security community.
Volt Typhoon campaign cited as an OT near-miss example
The 2024 Volt Typhoon activity was later referenced by OT security experts as an example of an OT-adjacent intrusion that caused major remediation costs despite limited immediate operational disruption. It was used to argue that any future OT incident scoring model should also account for "near misses."
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An OT Incident Scoring Systems Inspired by Natural Disasters
govinfosecurity.com
Open sourceAn OT Incident Scoring System Inspired by Natural Disasters
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Open sourceAn OT Incident Scoring System Inspired by Natural Disasters
bankinfosecurity.com
Open sourceAn OT Incident Scoring System Inspired by Natural Disasters
govinfosecurity.com
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