From Blind Spots to Full Control: How to Evolve Secure Remote Access in Manufacturing and Critical Industries

In industrial and critical infrastructure environments, secure remote access (SRA) has shifted from a convenience to a strategic, operational necessity. As digital transformation accelerates and the attack surface expands, organizations must evolve from VPNs, VDIs, and jump boxes to Zero Trust-based, intelligent access control systems. But how do they get there? 

The answer lies in a Crawl–Walk–Run maturity model, aligned with the SANS 5 ICS Cybersecurity Critical Controls: 

1. ICS Incident Response 

2. Defensible Architecture 

3. Secure Remote Access 

4. ICS Network Visibility and Monitoring 

5. Risk-Based Vulnerability Management 

With the latest innovations in Cyolo PRO (Privileged Remote Operations), including the groundbreaking Third-Party VPN Control and the previously-announced Intelligent Supervision capabilities, organizations now have the tools to accelerate this journey—without disrupting vendor workflows or production infrastructure. 

Crawl: Foundation & Visibility 

At this stage, organizations lay the groundwork by understanding their environment: 

• What assets are connected? 

• How are they accessed—especially by third parties? 

• Which systems are exposed to unmanaged or opaque remote access methods like legacy VPNs or black box gateways? 

Cyolo Capabilities

• Asset Access Hub gives security and operations teams a categorized view of critical assets—organized by function, zone, IP address, or vendor. 

• This capability empowers administrators to rapidly assign and adjust access based on context and user roles—streamlining governance and compliance with frameworks like NERC CIP, ISA/IEC 62443, and NIST 800-82. 

Outcome: A strong foundation of asset visibility and contextual awareness sets the stage for proactive access management. 

Walk: Control and Segmentation 

With visibility in place, the next focus is controlling who gets access, when, and to what—without sacrificing uptime or collaboration. 

Cyolo Capabilities

• Cyolo PRO enables secure, identity-based remote privileged access for cyber-physical systems (CPS) and operational technology (OT). Cyolo empowers industrial organizations to modernize their security posture by integrating Zero Trust principles, identity-based access for legacy systems, and centralized access governance with granular access and actions policy across sites. 

• Third-Party VPN Control (patent pending) provides visibility and segmentation for externally managed VPNs and hardware gateways—even if they're owned by vendors. This closes one of the most dangerous blind spots in OT—unmanaged remote access.  

• Instant Collaboration Link offers a browser-based, one-time secure access link for inviting vendors, auditors, or engineers into live sessions—without requiring agent installs. 

• Secure Remote Assistance enables both user-initiated and admin-initiated sessions that are fully policy-enforced and logged—helping internal teams offer timely support without opening up the network. 

Outcome: Secure, policy-driven access that limits lateral movement and supports productivity across engineering, operations, and vendor teams. 

Run: Automation, AI Supervision, and Governance 

In this mature phase, organizations scale secure access operations with automation, intelligent oversight, and deep integration with enterprise security programs. 

Cyolo Capabilities

• Intelligent Supervision extends AI-powered monitoring and risk scoring to privileged sessions—enabling real-time alerts, automated anomaly detection, and reduced manual oversight. 

• Combined with Cyolo PRO’s Zero Trust architecture, full session logging, secure file transfer, and SIEM integration, this feature helps teams transition from passive oversight to proactive security enforcement. 

Outcome: Secure remote access becomes a dynamic, intelligence-driven layer of your overall security posture—reducing operational overhead while improving resilience. 

The Bottom Line 

Secure remote access isn’t just about connecting users—it’s about enabling safe, governed, and efficient operations across increasingly complex and distributed environments. 

With Cyolo PRO, organizations can mature their access capabilities in lockstep with the SANS ICS Cybersecurity Pillars: 

• Crawl with asset visibility and discovery 

• Walk with policy-driven control and Zero Trust segmentation 

• Run with automation, AI supervision, and integrated governance 

Whether you’re securing a single plant or standardizing access across numerous global manufacturing sites, Cyolo gives you the tools to evolve—without compromise. 

Learn more about the latest updates to Cyolo PRO and how they support your OT security transformation.