Industry: protecting uptime with separate IT/OT backups and airgap

In industry, everything revolves around continuity. Machines must keep running. Production lines must deliver predictably. Downtime immediately costs money, capacity, and trust. A failure in an office environment is annoying. A failure in a production environment can mean orders are delayed, raw materials are lost, or entire processes must be shut down.

At the same time, industry is digitizing at a high pace. Production environments are becoming increasingly smart. Machines provide data. Sensors monitor performance. AI is used for predictive maintenance, quality control, and process optimization. As a result, IT and OT are growing closer together.

This development offers many opportunities, but also makes companies more vulnerable. Because the more production becomes dependent on digital systems, the greater the impact of a failure, ransomware attack, or poorly configured backup strategy.

The vulnerability of connected production environments

Many industrial organizations work with a combination of IT and OT. IT supports the office environment, planning, ERP, communication, and administrative processes. OT controls machines, production lines, sensors, PLCs, SCADA systems, and other operational processes.

In theory, these are separate worlds. In practice, they are becoming increasingly interconnected. Production data is used for reporting. Machines are managed remotely. ERP systems pass schedules to production. And maintenance parties gain access to industrial systems.

This connectivity increases efficiency but also increases risk. A cyberattack does not have to be aimed directly at the machine itself to affect production. If the IT environment fails, planning, order processing, logistics, or monitoring can come to a standstill. If OT systems are hit, production can come to an immediate halt.

Therefore, the central question is not just: how do we prevent an incident? The question is also: how quickly can we recover if things go wrong?

Uptime requires a different backup strategy

In many organizations, backup has historically been set up from an IT perspective. Think of files, applications, databases, and servers. This is important, but for production companies, it is not enough.

OT systems require their own approach. They contain configurations, machine settings, production logic, firmware, industrial software, and sometimes legacy systems that cannot be easily rebuilt. If this data is lost or damaged, recovery can take much longer than expected.

That is why it is wise to consciously separate IT and OT backups. Not because they have nothing to do with each other, but because the risks, recovery objectives, and priorities differ.

A good separation helps to:

• restore production processes faster
• limit cross-contamination between IT and OT
• securely store critical machine configurations
• better test recovery scenarios per environment
• minimize downtime during incidents

For industrial companies, this is not a technical nuance. It is a way to protect production continuity.

Why physical airgap remains important

Ransomware attacks are increasingly targeting backups. Attackers know that an organization is only truly under pressure when recovery becomes impossible or uncertain. Therefore, they try not only to encrypt primary systems but also to find, delete, or disable backup environments.

In an industrial environment, this can have major consequences. Without a reliable backup, recovery depends on manual reconstruction, suppliers, old documentation, or emergency workarounds. This takes time while production stands still.

A physical airgapped backup strategy reduces that risk. By physically disconnecting backups from the network, they are not continuously accessible to attackers. This makes them less vulnerable to ransomware, human error, or unwanted changes.

This is especially relevant for OT backups. Machine configurations, PLC programs, and production settings do not change daily, but they are crucial for recovery. This type of data in particular is well-suited for a secure, physically separate backup layer.

AI and sovereignty in industry

In addition to continuity, digital sovereignty is playing an increasingly large role. Industrial companies collect more and more sensitive data about processes, production methods, machines, quality controls, and maintenance. This data says a lot about how an organization operates. In some cases, it directly concerns intellectual property.

When AI is used for predictive maintenance or process optimization, the question arises as to where this data is processed. Does machine and production data go to a public cloud? Is the data used to train external models? Who has access to the underlying datasets? And can the organization demonstrate how an AI model reaches a certain conclusion?

Sovereign AI in industry is therefore not just about compliance. It is about maintaining a grip on business-sensitive knowledge. Companies want to benefit from AI, but not hand over their production secrets, process data, or maintenance data.

From efficiency to resilience

For years, industry has primarily focused on efficiency. Faster production, less waste, higher output, better planning. This focus remains important, but it is gaining a new dimension: resilience.

A production environment is only strong if it not only runs efficiently but is also resistant to disruptions. This means that data must be protected, recovery plans must be realistic, and backups must not only exist but also be usable when needed.

This includes a few critical questions:

• Which systems are needed to restart production?
• Are IT and OT backups separated from each other?
• Are critical OT configurations securely stored?
• Are backups protected against ransomware?
• Is a physical airgapped copy available?
• How quickly can we recover in the event of a failure?
• Has recovery been tested in a realistic scenario?

These questions do not just belong with IT. They belong at the executive level, because production downtime directly affects revenue, delivery reliability, and customer relationships.

How Comex can help

Comex helps industrial organizations set up their data and backup strategy around continuity, control, and recoverability.

With our solutions, IT and OT backups can be stored consciously separated. Critical production data, machine configurations, and operational data can be securely protected in an environment that matches the risks of industrial processes.

Physical airgap plays an important role in this. By physically disconnecting backups from the network, an extra layer of defense is created against ransomware and unwanted changes. This increases the chance of fast and reliable recovery when systems are hit.

Comex can also provide guidance on local AI support and unlocking corporate knowledge. Silent AI makes internal information accessible via an AI assistant that runs entirely on-premises, without prompts, tokens, or data leaving your own network. Think of faster finding, combining, and summarizing information from sources such as M365, SharePoint, file servers, SQL, and other internal systems. This allows industry to work smarter with its own data, while sensitive production, process, and business information remains within its own environment.

For production companies, digital innovation ultimately revolves around one question: does it help to make the operation stronger? With a secure, separate, and airgapped backup strategy, uptime is no longer a coincidence, but a manageable part of business operations.