Orbia CISO Miranda Ritchie explains how the company integrates cybersecurity into industrial infrastructure to protect physical processes, human safety, and environmental sustainability across its global manufacturing operations.

Key Points

• Orbia operates over 100 production sites in more than 50 countries, managing diverse industrial systems including chemical production and precision agriculture.
• The company prioritizes a "safety-first" culture, treating cyber incidents as potential threats to physical equipment, human health, and the environment.
• Ritchie emphasizes moving away from the "trusted network" assumption by implementing zero-trust, network segmentation, and secure remote access for legacy hardware.
• Cyber teams are embedded early in project design phases to ensure secure-by-design principles are applied before new technologies are deployed.
• Orbia recently conducted its first operational technology (OT) cyber incident tabletop exercise to align leadership on the intersection of security and business resilience.

Why it Matters

Integrating cybersecurity into industrial operations is critical for companies managing physical infrastructure where digital failures can cause real-world environmental or safety disasters. By treating security as a core component of sustainability and operational resilience, organizations can scale new technologies faster while mitigating the risks associated with aging hardware and distributed networks.