The Last Login on the Rig: Professor Kai London on Identity Security in Operational Technology
By the Alaska News Technology Desk Professor Kai London — CISO, cybersecurity & AI expert. Credit: professorkailondon.com In the energy sector's operational systems, the decisive security failure is rarely dramatic. “It is an identity — a human account, a shared login, a service credential, increasingly an AI agent — that authenticated when it should have been challenged, and could then reach far more than it should,” says Professor Kai London , a senior CISO. In control environments, he warns, identity has been an afterthought for too long. “Every breach begins with a login that should have been stopped. In OT, those logins reach machinery — which makes getting identity right a matter of safety, not just security.” The shared-credential problem Industrial environments are notorious for shared accounts, default passwords and credentials that never change because changing them risks disrupting a process. “A shared operator login that a dozen people know and that has not change...