While modern society's skylines symbolize innovation and prosperity, outdated critical infrastructure remains profoundly vulnerable below the surface. Much of the aging utility systems, manufacturing plants, and facilities powering essential services rely on deprecated software never designed for today's cyber threats.
Behind flashy corporate facades, much of this aging infrastructure relies on deprecated software and systems where cyber resilience is an afterthought. Attempts at hardening defenses consistently fail, unable to integrate modern capabilities built for a different era. And even emerging controls require specialized skills in short supply to implement properly.
Recognizing the urgency of reinforcing systemic defenses, Brian Stearns launched boutique cybersecurity firm Redbot Security to secure infrastructure from within. Now, Stearns and Redbot's leadership is shining a spotlight on the customized human-centered assessments needed to inoculate civilization's very foundations against impending dangers.
The Intensifying Menace to Aging OT Networks
"Most facilities still operate on equipment installed decades ago, running outdated software that ended support years prior," explains CEO Brian Stearns. "We routinely encounter unpatched variants completely defenseless even against basic attacks."
Once inside these aged environments, adversaries maneuver with ease, arriving quickly at core systems. Whether aiming to shut down vital processes or hijack critical functions, implications cascade rapidly—the effects rippling through essential flows. Yet despite such risks, many owners resist replacing aging infrastructure, impeded by exorbitant capital costs.
Insurmountable Skill Gaps Across IT and OT
Dated technology constitutes only one infrastructure dilemma. The human defenders safeguarding these technical environments remain equally underprepared across IT and OT systems. "Even seasoned penetration testers require extensive reorientation navigating industrial control systems and operational technologies," notes Andrew Bindner, Redbot's CSO.
Most security technicians specialize in IT environments quite distinct from OT layers directing physical equipment and processes. This unfamiliar terrain plunges even experts into obscure industrial worlds, demanding prolonged learning curves before competence. Hard-won skills gleaned over the years working with specialized gear rarely transfer between roles.
"During many of our onsite penetration testing engagements, Redbot takes time to sit with a client's senior and junior personnel to ramp up their cybersecurity knowledge. Filling the human-element gap with knowledge and key insights for better protective measures beyond policies and standards," the security lead emphasizes.
Misplaced Priorities Enable Chronic Vulnerability
"Whether lacking resources or facing budget constraints, security upgrades are too often deprioritized," explains CEO Brian Stearns. "Many enhancements only happen post-disaster instead of preemptively—an unsustainable dynamic."
This produces an environment where a lack of cyber readiness remains the norm rather than the exception across countless industrial sites. With skill gaps compounding already outdated stacks, defending infrastructure appears an insurmountable task—outpaced by rapidly evolving threats.
The Human Firewall: How Redbot Security Deploys Custom Protection to Help Companies Cultivate Their Own
Recognizing the need for both modern security expertise and legacy environment fluency, Redbot Security pioneered an innovative solution aligning clients' unique risks. Redbot deploys teams of senior security engineers to test defenses based on company-specific processes and technical ecosystems manually.
"We don't use automated scanners or one-size fits all pentest templates," Stearns says. "Our teams immerse themselves in the nuances of each client's environment—data flows, equipment workflows, personnel culture. We emphasize transparency, open communication, accessibility, and distinguished reporting to complement our elite testing methodologies and capabilities. In doing so, we are able to transform conventional IT teams into human firewalls tailored to precise technical and cultural fabrics."
By evaluating from an attacker perspective, Redbot highlights vulnerabilities and provides guidance fortifying defenses in alignment with client risk tolerance and business intricacies—strengthening security posture from within.
Rapid Security Evolution Through Technology
Penetration tests can be a long, expensive, and confusing necessity in an environment that may already be compromised. The average turnaround to receive the results of a penetration test can be from two weeks to two months or longer, which is more time than it takes for a malicious actor to take control of an organization's critical assets.
To combat the rapidly changing threat landscape, organizations must evolve to implement corrections or fix security vulnerabilities quickly. Redbot developed an innovative solution to enhance security assessments by providing the ability to rapidly deploy necessary appliances for elite consultants to review applications or infrastructure and allow real-time reporting of issues.
The solution, while originally developed for penetration testing teams to integrate with their customers seamlessly, has also shown promise in other areas of the cybersecurity cycle, such as incident response and blue teams, allowing such teams to deploy necessary tools and access where it is needed rapidly.
"Cymbiotic is a teenager, still finding itself and working up to its full potential. While the application is already well on its way to completion, we continuously identify new and exciting paths to use it in novel ways." says Lead Developer Morgan Habecker.
Commitment Beyond Compliance Audits
But for Redbot, enduring success transcends software or check-the-box assessments, demonstrating minimum due diligence. "Our role is to mentor and enhance security from within, not just audit quarterly," Stearns emphasizes. "We embed resilient frameworks calibrated to individual risk landscapes."
This entails extensive collaboration, implementing strategic upgrades, overhauling high-risk architectures, and transferring knowledge through role-specific training regimens. With threats rapidly evolving, an active security commitment centered on fundamental principles represents the only durable solution.
Inoculating Civilization's Foundations
As risks expand quicker than reactionary defenses erected can contain, creative solutions like Redbot's elite Senior Level testing teams furnish unified advantages securing society's digitizing pillars. Yet integration alone constitutes one piece of the puzzle.
"Only by securing unstable foundations first can we reinforce the underlying bedrock enabling human progress," urges Stearns. "That requires modernizing projects, investing in specialized training, and adopting bespoke innovations designed for the complex tasks ahead."
Through vision, a more resilient infrastructure ecosystem beckons—safeguarding civilization's arteries via purposeful enhancements. Yet this requires understanding escalating dangers paired with action to secure vulnerable environments from within. By reinforcing defenses today, a brighter tomorrow unfolds—one where innovation and safety coalesce, supporting societies for generations ahead.
Behind the glittering success of modern life, outdated architectures remain profoundly exposed, gateways to disruption. But solutions now stand ready to erect reinforced bulwarks securing technical foundations below. With organizations already trusting infrastructure security to Redbot's elite teams, the future shines brighter—civilization constructing towering monuments to prosperity atop fortified footings below.
