Industries

Utility companies and energy operators face a security environment unlike any other sector. AI-enabled grid management, predictive maintenance systems, and digital transformation are expanding the attack surface faster than traditional NERC CIP programs were designed to counter. Optiv Consulting brings OT-specialized practitioners who understand the AI-transformed threat environment and the specific requirements of NERC CIP compliance. Our work includes grid security assessments, AI-enabled OT monitoring architecture, and network segmentation design across transmission and distribution utilities in North America.

AI has changed financial services security in two directions simultaneously: AI-driven fraud and agentic attackers are raising the sophistication of the threat environment, while AI-enabled regulatory scrutiny is raising the bar for how security programs demonstrate maturity. Financial institutions are deploying AI across trading, underwriting, fraud detection, and customer service at scale, creating new governance obligations and new attack surfaces. Our client base includes insurance carriers, commercial banks, investment management firms, and federal home loan institutions.

AI-enabled clinical decision tools, AI-driven diagnostic systems, and agentic healthcare automation are being deployed at a pace that HIPAA frameworks and FDA device guidance have not kept up with. Meanwhile, AI-generated social engineering and AI-assisted ransomware are making healthcare (already one of the most targeted sectors) even more exposed. Optiv Consulting has worked with health systems, hospital networks, specialty providers, and healthcare distributors on AI-driven security program assessment, identity governance for AI-enabled clinical environments, OT and IoT security for AI-connected medical devices, and incident response.

AI-driven process optimization, predictive maintenance, and agentic automation are being deployed in manufacturing environments faster than security programs can govern them. The convergence of IT and OT environments is being accelerated by AI, and for defense industrial base organizations, AI-related obligations under CMMC add a compliance dimension to an already complex risk landscape. Our work has included SASE deployments across tens of thousands of users on multiple continents and AI-informed security program design for organizations where operational continuity and supply chain integrity are first-order priorities.

Retail organizations are deploying AI across customer experience, inventory management, fraud detection, and marketing. Every AI deployment is a potential new attack surface. AI-generated phishing targeting retail employees, AI-driven fraud against payment systems, and AI-enabled supply chain attacks are all increasing in sophistication. Our client base includes Fortune 5 retailers for whom we have operationalized enterprise-scale AI-aware application and penetration testing programs spanning multiple business units.

Technology companies are building AI-native products at a pace that almost no security program can fully match. Many are discovering that their application security, data governance, and identity programs were not designed for AI-native development. The attack surfaces created by AI-enabled products, agentic APIs, and AI-driven data pipelines are fundamentally different from those of traditional software. Intellectual property (including AI model weights, training data, and proprietary algorithms) is a high-value target for nation-state actors with AI-driven collection capabilities.

Law firms and professional services organizations are deploying AI-enabled document review, AI-driven legal research tools, and agentic workflows that access some of the most sensitive information in any industry. The security obligation that comes with that access is compounded by the new exposure AI-enabled workflows create. AI-generated spear phishing targeting law firm clients, AI-assisted data exfiltration from document management systems, and governance gaps created by ungoverned AI tool deployment are all active threats to this sector.

Life sciences companies are deploying AI at the frontier of drug discovery, clinical trial management, and medical device development, creating AI-enabled intellectual property that is among the most valuable and most targeted in any sector. AI-driven drug design represents years of research and billions of dollars of value; the nation-state actors who target it are themselves AI-enabled. FDA AI guidance for medical devices, emerging AI governance obligations, and the data governance requirements of AI-enabled clinical trials are creating compliance obligations that most life sciences security programs have not fully mapped.