Every time a light switches on, a train arrives on schedule, or clean water reaches a kitchen tap, an unseen network of industrial systems is working behind the scenes. These systems control power plants, manufacturing lines, water treatment facilities, and countless other operations that modern society cannot function without. When they run smoothly, life feels ordinary. When they fail, the consequences ripple outward in ways that touch millions of people. Cyber threats aimed at these systems have grown sharper and more determined, turning what once seemed like remote technical risks into immediate concerns for businesses, communities, and nations. Protecting this foundation has become one of the most urgent responsibilities of our time.
Dragos exists to meet that responsibility head-on. Founded by cybersecurity specialists who have spent years investigating and responding to some of the most serious attacks ever directed at industrial control systems, the company carries a clear purpose: to safeguard civilization from those who would disrupt the critical infrastructure people depend on every day. That mission shapes every product, every service, and every decision. Dragos does not treat operational technology as an afterthought bolted onto traditional IT security. It builds solutions designed from the ground up for the unique realities of industrial environments, where downtime can halt production, compromise safety, and affect real lives.
The company’s approach centers on what it calls extended operational technology, or xOT. This broader view recognizes that the systems keeping operations running extend far beyond classic control rooms. A BACnet controller managing air flow in a control room, a camera verifying that a machine guard is closed before a line restarts, an IoT sensor tracking conditions on a factory floor, all of these belong in the defense plan if their failure would stop physical operations. Most security programs still see only a fraction of that landscape. Dragos set out to change that.
Seeing the Full Environment Without Disruption
The foundation of any strong defense is clear visibility. The Dragos Platform automatically discovers, classifies, and monitors assets across OT, IT, IoT, and IIoT environments. It relies first on passive methods that never interfere with operations, then uses carefully targeted active collection only when deeper insight is needed. With native support for more than 600 industrial protocols, the platform builds a living map of the systems that matter. Hundreds of industrial facilities already trust it to protect millions of assets. Operators finally gain the complete picture that traditional tools have long left incomplete.
This visibility does more than list devices. It connects each asset to its operational role so teams understand not just what exists, but what depends on it. When a vulnerability appears, the platform translates technical risk into operational impact. Its Now, Next, Never framework helps teams decide which issues demand immediate attention and which can wait. Only a small percentage of the vulnerabilities found in industrial environments actually require urgent action. By cutting through the noise, Dragos lets scarce security resources focus where they will protect production and safety most effectively.
Catching the Threats That Conventional Tools Miss
Industrial adversaries behave differently from those who target office networks. They understand control protocols, they study process behavior, and they aim to cause physical disruption rather than simply steal data. Generic security tools often miss these patterns because they were never built to recognize them. Dragos fills that gap with multi-layered detection powered by continuous research into the groups that specifically target industrial systems. The company’s threat intelligence team, the largest civilian group focused exclusively on threats to physical operations, tracks more than two dozen named adversary groups and feeds that knowledge directly into the platform.
Detection does not stop at alerts. Expert-authored response playbooks, case management tools, and AI-assisted investigation help analysts move quickly from discovery to containment. Dragos EmberAI, trained on years of frontline experience and vast amounts of operational telemetry, brings specialized industrial knowledge into everyday workflows. Analysts gain the benefit of deep expertise without needing decades of personal experience. When an incident escalates, SLA-backed services can place skilled responders on the case within an hour, acting as an extension of the customer’s own team.
Strength Through Shared Knowledge and Steady Support
No organization faces these challenges alone. Neighborhood Keeper, Dragos’s anonymized information-sharing network, lets participating companies contribute and benefit from community-wide intelligence on assets, threats, and vulnerabilities. The larger the network grows, the stronger every participant becomes. Alongside this collective effort sits Dragos OT-CERT, a dedicated resource that provides free cybersecurity guidance and support to help close the security gaps that still exist across industrial infrastructure.
Professional services complete the picture. Whether a company needs help preparing for threats, strengthening existing defenses, or responding to an active incident, Dragos specialists bring real-world experience gained from investigating major industrial attacks. They do not simply hand over tools; they work alongside internal teams so knowledge transfers and capabilities improve over time.
A Defense Built for the Scale of Modern Operations
The industrial world has expanded. Security must expand with it. Dragos stands as the only company purpose-built to secure the full xOT environment, from the first sensor discovered to the final step of an investigation. Its platform, intelligence, services, and community initiatives form a continuous cycle of seeing, prioritizing, detecting, and responding. The result is practical resilience: fewer surprises, faster recovery, and greater confidence that the systems powering daily life will keep running.
Behind the technology sits a simple conviction. Critical infrastructure is not an abstract technical domain. It is the quiet machinery that allows hospitals to function, cities to stay lit, and factories to produce the goods people need. Protecting it is not optional. Dragos treats that protection as both a professional duty and a human one. By combining deep industrial understanding with continuous innovation, the company helps organizations defend what matters most, the uninterrupted flow of the systems civilization relies on every single day.
The Visionary Leader at the Helm of Dragos
Robert M. Lee, Chairman and CEO of Dragos, is a recognized leader in industrial cybersecurity and a global authority on protecting operational technology and industrial control systems. A former U.S. Air Force Cyber Warfare Operations Officer, he pioneered efforts to identify and analyze cyber-threats to critical infrastructure.
As CEO and co-founder of Dragos, Robert has contributed to investigations of major industrial cyber incidents, including attacks on Ukraine’s power grid, the TRISIS attack, and the Colonial Pipeline ransomware incident. He also serves as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army National Guard and advises governments and industry leaders on critical infrastructure cybersecurity. A SANS Fellow, Robert is also a recipient of SC Media’s 2022 Security Executive of the Year award.
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