Rockwell Automation's report links industrial cybersecurity to operational resilience and growth. It says that 34% identify cybersecurity among the biggest external obstacles to growth over the next year. These are vendor-reported research findings; they do not show that a particular security platform prevents incidents.
The original item cited by this article was a vendor press release carried by Dark Reading on September 22, 2026. It was not an independent survey conducted by Dark Reading. The Rockwell report and its public landing page now provide direct references for the findings below.
Four findings, four different measures
| Reported figure | What it describes | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| 34% | Cybersecurity identified among major external growth obstacles over the next year | A measured loss in industrial output or a market-size estimate |
| 46% | Experience of a cyber incident in the past year | The frequency or severity of incidents at every industrial company |
| 90% | Confidence in containing a cyber incident | An independently tested recovery capability |
| 62% | Investment in cybersecurity platforms | Proof that a particular purchase caused a better outcome |
The report discusses increasingly connected operations, AI adoption and IT/OT integration as sources of complexity and dependencies. Those themes are relevant to planning, but they do not establish the cause of any particular incident. The percentages also describe different questions: subtracting the incident figure from the confidence figure would not produce a resilience score.
How to use the findings in an OT review
The following questions are our editorial interpretation of the report, not new survey results or a statutory compliance checklist:
- Which business-critical operations depend on connections between IT and OT, remote access or external service providers?
- What evidence supports a claim that an incident can be contained? Ask for the scope, date and conditions of the most recent exercise.
- Which recovery procedures have been tested for the actual production environment, and who owns the remaining gaps?
- When comparing a proposed platform with an existing control, distinguish a product feature from an observed operational outcome.
A survey can help identify questions to investigate. It cannot substitute for an asset-specific risk assessment, an incident record or a tested recovery plan. This article does not independently audit Rockwell's underlying responses. The cited findings should retain their vendor attribution when reused.
For readers arriving through industrial cybersecurity market queries, this is a report about perceived obstacles and operational readiness. The cited findings do not provide total market value, revenue growth or an industry-wide spending forecast. For vulnerability reporting, our CVE document reference explains how to separate an advisory from evidence of exploitation.
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Correction, November 2, 2026: Replaced a placeholder CVE, unsupported spending forecast and unsourced regulatory claims with attributed report findings. Corrected the description of the original item as a vendor press release. The original article URL, dates and image remain unchanged.