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A leading global food manufacturer is headquartered in the United States but operates in over 150 countries. This organization relies heavily on its OT systems to provide safety, efficiency, and compliance across its global manufacturing network to deliver the highest quality standard.
The manufacturer is committed to protecting critical operations, maintaining regulatory alignment, and supporting its long-term strategic goals. To continue honoring their commitment, they were seeking advanced cybersecurity and risk management practices.
- Relied on traditional National Vulnerability Database (NVD) and Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) frameworks that lacked context for assessing OT-specific vulnerabilities
- Struggled to prioritize cybersecurity initiatives due to insufficiently nuanced data
- Faced difficulties aligning risk management with broader strategic and compliance objectives
- Partnered with Rockwell Automation to develop calculated risk rating (CRR) framework tailored for OT environments
- Integrated calculated impact rating (CIR) to quantify business and operational impact of each asset
- Applied exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) to predict likelihood of vulnerabilities being exploited
- Combined CIR and EPSS to produce actionable risk heat map for targeted resource allocation
- Gained contextual and asset-specific view of cybersecurity risks across global operations
- Improved prioritization of vulnerabilities through predictive, data-driven analytics
- Achieved stronger alignment between cybersecurity initiatives, compliance mandates, and strategic objectives
- Transitioned from reactive risk identification to proactive, intelligence-driven risk management
Challenge
Traditional Risk Framework Lacked OT Context
A leading global food manufacturer approached Rockwell Automation seeking a more precise, actionable way to manage cybersecurity risk across its OT environment.
The manufacturer’s existing approach relied heavily on traditional National Vulnerability Database (NVD) and Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) frameworks. While effective for IT assets, these frameworks lacked the contextual awareness needed for the operational impact, uptime, and safety required in OT environments. This resulted in the manufacturer’s struggle to prioritize vulnerabilities, allocate resources effectively, and align its cybersecurity initiatives with broader business and compliance goals.
Solution
Introduced Calculated Risk Rating Framework
In partnership with Rockwell Automation, the manufacturer adopted the Calculated Risk Rating (CRR) framework to address the gaps in its traditional risk assessment process.
The CRR framework integrates two key components:
- Calculated impact rating: Quantifies the potential impact of each OT asset—site specific, network, or hardware-related—and translates those concepts into measurable, actionable data points.
- Exploit prediction scoring system: Incorporates predictive analytics to estimate the likelihood that a vulnerability will be exploited within 30 days based on real-world evidence.
By merging these two ratings, Rockwell Automation and the manufacturer created a dynamic heat map of risk that highlighted critical vulnerabilities and their impact. This visualization allowed the manufacturer to focus resources on the highest risk assets first.
Result
Supported Confident and Controlled Risk Management
Throughout the implementation of the CRR framework, the manufacturer gained a clear, data-driven view of OT risk that bridged the gap between cybersecurity, compliance, and strategic operations.
The manufacturer moved from reactive risk identification to proactive, predictive risk management using CIR and EPSS to identify vulnerabilities most likely to impact operations. Early adoption feedback improved decision-making efficiency and risk prioritization accuracy.
Results included:
- Contextual risk visibility across global OT assets
- Vulnerability prioritization through predictive analytics
- Alignment with compliance and strategic objectives
- Move from static assessments to dynamic, intelligence-driven risk management
Published June 2, 2026