Operational technology (OT) - the systems that control production lines, water treatment plants, power grids, and logistics terminals - is the backbone of Swedish industry. Unlike office IT, these systems are built for stability over change. Many run on Windows XP or older Linux because OS updates can invalidate certifications and halt production. Equipment runs for 20–30 years because it simply cannot be taken offline. That makes OT environments an attractive and vulnerable target.
Who is at risk?
Most IT partners encounter OT environments across customers in manufacturing (Volvo, SKF, Sandvik), energy and district heating, municipal water and wastewater, food production (Arla, Oatly), logistics and cold-chain, and healthcare and pharma.
What does an hour of downtime cost?
Sector, Estimated cost/hour
- Automotive manufacturing - SEK 1–5M
- Pulp & paper - SEK 300–800K
- Food production SEK 150–500K
- Energy distribution - Regulatory fines + customer loss
- Municipal water/wastewater - Public health and civil liability
Jaguar Land Rover's factory was shut down for months after a cyberattack on their OT environment in 2025 - costing several billion SEK. A similar attack on a Swedish manufacturing line could produce hundreds of millions in direct losses before accounting for recovery costs, regulatory penalties, and reputational damage.
Why OT outages are worse than IT outages
Mechanical failures are isolated and predictable. Cyberattacks are not. Attackers compromise engineering workstations, then move laterally into SCADA, DCS, and HMI systems - disabling multiple systems across a plant simultaneously. Recovery depends on digital restoration, not spare parts, and without a plan it takes days, not hours.
From 2025, NIS2 also means more Swedish businesses face binding EU cybersecurity requirements for critical infrastructure - adding regulatory risk on top of operational risk.
What needs to be in place
- OT-adapted backup - immutable storage ransomware cannot encrypt, with legacy OS support
- One-click restoration - on-site staff must be able to restore critical systems in minutes, not days
- Integrated OT security - built for air-gapped environments and systems that cannot be patched regularly
- Universal Restore - recover decade-old systems onto new or dissimilar hardware if needed
Acronis Cyber Protect for OT is built specifically for these challenges. Use the ICS/OT downtime calculator to estimate what an outage costs your customer- a strong starting point for any OT security conversation.