Cyber & ISO · Safe for live production
OT / IT Cyber Readiness Assessment
One assessment across the factory floor and the IT estate: every system listed, the paths an attacker would take from an office laptop to a production line mapped, and a fix plan sequenced to your maintenance windows. From £16,500 + VAT, fixed in writing, using only methods that are safe for live production.
The assessment at a glance
Definition
What is an OT / IT cyber readiness assessment?
An OT / IT cyber readiness assessment measures cyber risk across operational technology and IT together: the production equipment, the control systems, the networks between them and the corporate estate they connect to. It exists because attacks rarely start in the factory. They start in an inbox and walk across, and an assessment that stops at the server room misses the path that matters.
Intelance delivers it in four to six weeks from £16,500 + VAT, fixed in writing before work starts, using only methods that are safe for live production. Findings are benchmarked against IEC 62443 and the NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework, and ranked by what would stop production rather than by generic severity scores.
The findings are written twice: in plain English for the board and plant managers, and technically for whoever does the fixes, which can be any supplier. The wider practice is described under cyber assurance.
OT and IT together
One assessment across production and corporate, because attacks cross exactly that boundary.
Safe for live production
Passive methods on the OT side: nothing that could trip a controller or halt a line.
The standards translated into plain actions
Benchmarked against IEC 62443 and the NCSC CAF, reported in plain English.
A plan that fits the calendar
Fixes sequenced to maintenance windows, never to audit deadlines.
The checks
Six questions most production estates cannot answer
Every finding traces back to one of these. Each card shows what you know at the end that you did not know at the start.
A complete list of every system
Production equipment, controllers, HMIs, historians and the forgotten Windows box in the corner, inventoried without touching production.
What you learnWhat you run, including the systems nobody owns.How an attack reaches production
The paths from a phishing email to a production line, traced across the IT and OT boundary the way ransomware travels.
What you learnThe crossings that matter, and what currently stands in the way.Whether the barriers really exist
Segmentation on the network diagram is not segmentation on the network. Zones and conduits are verified rather than assumed.
What you learnWhich barriers hold, which leak, and which exist only on paper.Old equipment that cannot be updated
Unsupported Windows versions and old firmware running production are a fact of OT life. The question is what protects them.
What you learnCompensating controls judged honestly, system by system.Who can get in from outside
Vendor remote access, engineering laptops, cellular modems and the VPN nobody remembers commissioning.
What you learnEvery route in from the internet, and who holds the keys.Whether you meet the rules
NIS obligations for essential services, customer security demands and insurance conditions, mapped against what exists.
What you learnWhere you stand against the rules that apply to you, in one view.How it works
Four to six weeks without touching production
The assessment is planned around your operations, and the site work happens beside your engineers rather than around them.
Getting the picture
Drawings, inventories and interviews first, so site time is spent verifying rather than discovering.
Site visits
Walking the plants with your engineers: passive network capture, configuration review and the conversations that surface what diagrams hide.
Finding the gaps
Findings tested against IEC 62443 and the NCSC CAF, ranked by what would stop production.
Report and plan
Two reports from one assessment: plain English for the board, technical detail for the fixers, and a plan sequenced to maintenance windows.
Doing the fixes
With your team, any supplier, or ours. The plan is written so you are never locked to us.
Multi-site estates take longer and are planned site by site, and the fee is fixed for the agreed scope before work starts. Where suppliers hold remote access into production, the supplier assessment usually runs alongside.
Published fees
What firms add afterwards
The assessment stands alone, and the plan can be executed by anyone. These are the services that usually follow it.
Virtual Security Office (vSCARO)
A retained security function run month by month: the findings owned, the fixes tracked and the questions answered between assessments.Best whenNobody owns security once the report lands. FeeFrom £7,500 + VAT / month 02Supplier AI & Cyber Risk
The vendors and integrators who connect into your production estate, assessed with the same honesty as your own systems.Best whenSuppliers hold remote access into the plant. FeeFrom £8,500 + VAT 03ISO 27001 Gap Assessment
Where customers want certified assurance across the whole organisation, the gap assessment measures the distance and prices the journey.Best whenThe ask has grown beyond the factory floor. FeeFrom £8,500 + VAT1 to 2 weeks 04
Cyber Essentials
The UK baseline, certified by our own IASME licensed assessors at official fees. Often what a customer or insurer asked for.Best whenThe demand is a certificate, quickly. FeeFrom £320 + VAT official feeDays
The alternatives
The routes compared
Three ways organisations assess industrial cyber risk. The difference is who protects production.
The corporate estate reviewed, with the factory treated as out of scope
The boundary crossings where attacks enter production
A clean IT report while the plant runs unsupported Windows
Offices without production environments
Your automation vendor reviews the equipment it sold and maintains
Everything outside that vendor’s kit, and every finding that embarrasses it
A conflict of interest wearing a hard hat
Warranty and maintenance conversations
OT and IT assessed together from £16,500 + VAT, by a team with no equipment to sell
Built around the boundary, from inbox to production line
Honest findings, ranked by production impact
Manufacturers and operators that need the whole picture
Scope
What the fee covers and what sits outside it
You get
A full asset inventory across OT and IT, built without touching production.
Attack paths traced across the IT and OT boundary, the way ransomware travels.
Findings benchmarked against IEC 62443 and the NCSC CAF, ranked by production impact.
Two reports from one assessment: plain English for the board, technical detail for the fixers.
A supplier-neutral fix plan sequenced to your maintenance windows.
This is not
A penetration test of your plant. Active testing against live OT is how outsiders stop production. Our methods are passive by design.
A vendor audit. We sell no equipment and take no commission, so findings never bend around a product line.
An IT review with OT bolted on. The factory floor is the point, and the boundary is where the work happens.
A compliance paper exercise. The rules are mapped, and so is the attack that ignores them.
Where to start
The situations that bring people here
Four situations we are usually called into. If none of them fit, speak to the assessment lead and we will point you at the right first step.
Why Intelance
What you can expect from a licensed body
Safe for live production
Passive methods on the OT side, agreed with your engineers before anyone arrives on site. Nothing in the assessment can trip a controller or halt a line.
Both sides of the boundary
One team assesses production and corporate together, because the attack path crosses exactly that boundary and split assessments miss it.
No equipment to sell
No vendor alliances and no commission, so findings are ranked by risk to production rather than by anyone’s product line.
One assessment written for two audiences
The board and plant managers get plain English. The fixers get technical detail. Nobody has to translate.
A priced and sequenced plan
From £16,500 + VAT fixed in writing, with fixes sequenced to maintenance windows and written so any supplier can execute them.
The people behind the work
Every assessment is led by a senior OT security lead, with your engineers beside us on every site visit. Nothing is offshored and nothing touches production.
Cyber assurance guides
All insights
Cyber EssentialsCyber Essentials vs ISO 27001 vs IASME Cyber Assurance: which do you need?
The three UK security certifications compared, including the one most guides skip: what each covers, what each costs, and the ladder order that means no money is wasted, from a certification body that holds two of them itself.
9 July 2026 · 6 min read Read the guide
Cyber EssentialsCyber Essentials vs ISO 27001: when you need one, both, and in what order
23 March 2026 · 10 min read
CybersecurityISO 27001 readiness assessment checklist (UK)
8 December 2025 · 11 min read
Cyber EssentialsCyber Essentials 2026: key changes and what they mean for SMEs
23 March 2026 · 11 min readReady to talk?
Tell us what you run and where
Thirty minutes with the assessment lead: how many sites, what the production estate looks like and who is asking the question. If the board wants an answer this quarter, say so. Four to six weeks usually holds.
FAQs
Questions about the OT and IT assessment
What is an OT / IT cyber readiness assessment?
A single assessment of cyber risk across operational technology and IT together: production equipment, control systems, the networks between them and the corporate estate they connect to, ending in a ranked fix plan sequenced to maintenance windows. It covers the boundary that attacks cross, which separate IT and OT reviews both miss.
How much does an OT / IT cyber readiness assessment cost?
From £16,500 + VAT with Intelance. The exact fee depends on the number of sites and the amount of equipment you run, and it is fixed in writing before work starts. There is no equipment to buy and no subscription attached.
How long does it take?
Four to six weeks for most estates: the picture first, then site visits beside your engineers, then the gap analysis, report and plan. Multi-site estates take longer and are planned site by site.
Will the assessment interrupt production?
No, and this is designed rather than promised. Methods on the OT side are passive: network capture, configuration review and interviews. Nothing active is run against controllers or production systems, because active scanning of fragile OT equipment is exactly how outsiders stop lines.
What standards is it benchmarked against?
IEC 62443 for industrial control system security and the NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework, with NIS obligations mapped where you operate essential services and Cyber Essentials where a certificate answers a customer demand. The report translates all of it into plain English.
Do you assess ICS and SCADA environments?
Yes. Controllers, SCADA systems, HMIs, historians and the engineering workstations around them are all in scope, assessed passively. The inventory usually surfaces systems nobody currently owns, which is itself a finding.
What about NIS obligations?
Where you are an operator of essential services, the assessment maps your position against NIS obligations through the NCSC CAF lens, in the same plain English as everything else. Where you are not, the same evidence answers customer and insurer demands.
What is the difference between OT and IT security?
IT security protects data and systems where confidentiality usually matters most. OT security protects physical processes where availability and safety come first. The tools, patching realities and failure consequences differ completely, which is why an IT methodology applied to a factory floor causes the outages it is meant to prevent.
Who does the fixes afterwards?
Anyone you choose. The plan is written supplier-neutral and sequenced to your maintenance windows: your team, your integrator or ours. Where nobody owns security month to month, the Virtual Security Office runs it from £7,500 + VAT per month.