Cybersecurity of operational knowledge: protecting what keeps organisations running

On 22 April 2026, Federico Cerutti spoke at Cybersecurity Masterclass | La leva strategica che abilita la crescita della tua azienda, organised by Confindustria Brescia, with a talk on the cybersecurity of operational knowledge.

The talk focused on an aspect of security that is often overlooked: operational continuity does not depend only on protecting data, networks and information systems. It also depends on the practical know-how that allows processes, plants and people to keep working when reality diverges from procedures: configurations, accumulated exceptions, operator routines, maintenance criteria, key-user experience, and the ways in which an organisation recognises and resolves recurring problems.

In many companies, especially in industrial settings, operational knowledge is distributed across people, machines, operational technology, ERP systems, supply chain platforms, external providers and, increasingly, artificial intelligence systems. This makes cybersecurity not only a technical issue, but also a matter of organisational coherence: protecting the company’s ability to interpret signals, make decisions and act reliably.

The talk discussed three forms of fragility: the dispersion of operational knowledge, its distortion through configurations, updates or unmanaged practices, and the growing mediation introduced by dashboards, predictive systems and AI tools. In all these cases, the risk is not limited to data exfiltration or system unavailability. It also concerns the gradual loss of the organisation’s ability to understand how and why a process works.

The proposed perspective invites companies to treat operational knowledge as a critical asset to be mapped, documented and protected. Before selecting tools, organisations need to identify critical know-how, single points of failure, relevant exceptions, knowledge exchanges with external parties and the unmanaged use of generative AI tools.

The Masterclass page is available on the Confindustria Brescia website: Cybersecurity Masterclass | La leva strategica che abilita la crescita della tua azienda.

The recording of the second session is available on demand: Cybersecurity Masterclass | 2nd session (access according to the platform conditions).

Materials

The talk notes and slides are also available.