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KEYWORDS: ARC Industry Leadership Forum, Industrial Cybersecurity, Industrial AI, Secure Remote Access, Cybersecurity Assessments, OT Patching, Advanced Persistent Threats
Overview
ARC just held its 30th Annual Industry Leadership Forum in Orlando from Feb 9-12. It’s hard to believe we’ve been talking about industrial cybersecurity for almost as long. This year marked the return of our strong industrial cybersecurity program at the Forum, consisting of a half day of cybersecurity workshops on Monday to two case study sessions and additional workshops scattered throughout the week.
The big thing that differentiates the ARC Industry Forum cybersecurity content is the end user involvement. All our panel discussion sessions and case study sessions emphasize end user requirements and challenges for industrial cybersecurity in real-world operational settings. It’s one of the few places end users can talk to other end users (as well as experienced solution providers) to gain the benefit of their experience and bring real-world solutions and thinking back to their own plants and facilities, so we can all hopefully be a little bit safer and more secure. All of these users volunteer their time and effort to make this happen and we sincerely extend our thanks to them, as well as our vendor partners, for making the cybersecurity program successful.
Fortinet Workshop
Monday opened our cybersecurity workshops with an introductory workshop by our Forum sponsor Fortinet. This session served as the kickoff workshop for ARC’s 2026 industrial cybersecurity program. It began with a short overview of ARC’s cybersecurity practice and Forum structure, followed by a dedicated Fortinet presentation focused on operationalizing cyber resilience in industrial environments. The session was designed to educate attendees on practical approaches to reducing OT risk within critical infrastructure and industrial operations.
The Fortinet portion of the workshop was titled “Securing What Matters: Operationalizing Cyber Resilience to Reduce OT Risk.” The presentation focused on how industrial organizations can move beyond high‑level cybersecurity strategies and implement concrete, operational measures to improve resilience across OT environments. According to the session plan, the workshop emphasized real‑world OT security challenges and how Fortinet’s approach helps organizations strengthen their critical infrastructure security posture. The session format allocated approximately 15 minutes for ARC’s introductory remarks, followed by a 45‑minute Fortinet presentation, underscoring the workshop’s applied, practitioner‑oriented focus.
The workshop was moderated by Sid Snitkin of ARC Advisory Group, who opened the session, introduced the cybersecurity program, and transitioned the floor to Fortinet. The Fortinet presenters included Eric Anderson, an OT Specialist in Systems Engineering at Fortinet, and Carlos‑Raul Sanchez, Senior Director of Operational Technology Solution Engineer Specialists at Fortinet. Internal ARC documentation notes that Carlos‑Raul Sanchez brought extensive prior experience securing oil fields and offshore assets across multiple global regions, which informed the practical, operations‑focused perspective of the workshop. Together, these participants represented both ARC’s analytical viewpoint and Fortinet’s vendor and practitioner expertise.
Cybersecurity Workshop Keynote Presentation: The Double-Edged Sword of AI in Industrial Cybersecurity
Sid Snitkin opened his presentation by framing the accelerating role of artificial intelligence within industrial and OT cybersecurity. He positioned AI not as a single technology shift, but as a set of capabilities increasingly embedded across cybersecurity platforms, particularly in areas such as asset and threat data searching, alert and event analysis, intrusion detection, behavioral baselining, identity and access management, and incident response. Many cybersecurity solution providers are already incorporating AI-enhanced features, and end users are beginning to see tangible benefits from these enhancements in operational environments.
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