Manufacturers are improving OT remote access, but third-party access governance still lags behind, says Secomea

The investable signal is not “more cyber spend,” but a shift in who gets paid for it: buyers are moving from connectivity tools to identity, workflow control, auditability, and revocation. That favors platform vendors that can sit in the approval chain and integrate with enterprise IAM/PAM stacks, while compressing the opportunity for fragmented VPN-style products and niche OT point solutions. Over 6-18 months, this should be a relative tailwind for larger software names with cross-domain security credibility, not a near-term revenue catalyst for any one vendor.

The main risk is that this remains a governance story rather than a budget unlock. Industrial customers often acknowledge the problem for 2-3 quarters before converting it into purchase orders, and CapEx pressure can still delay rollouts if production teams view controls as an operational friction cost. The clearest falsifier is a lack of procurement evidence in upcoming earnings cycles: if OT-security mentions do not turn into backlog, ARR, or “security and compliance” budget growth by the next two reporting quarters, the theme is probably more narrative than cash-flow accretive.

Contrarian view: the market may be underestimating how much of this spend migrates to the CIO/CISO budget from the plant floor, which structurally helps software platforms with enterprise distribution. IT (Gartner) is only a marginal beneficiary via advisory/research demand and is not the best expression of the theme. The cleaner read-through is to watch for industrial-security attachments in cybersecurity platforms rather than chase the private-vendor press release itself.