A recently disclosed vulnerability affecting Universal Robots’ collaborative robot platform should be a wake-up call for all industrial security leaders.
In May, the Danish robotics company issued an advisory for a critical command-injection flaw affecting PolyScope 5, the control software used by its collaborative robots. If an attacker could reach the robot’s remote-control interface over the network, the flaw could allow them to execute commands on the robot’s operating system without logging in.
In other words, one of those robots could have given malicious actors a remote entry point right onto the factory floor. Once compromised, the machine could have disrupted production, damaged equipment or created safety risks for workers nearby.
Universal Robots has since released a fix, and no known public exploitation had been reported at the time of the advisory. But the vulnerability still shows how quickly a software flaw in connected industrial equipment can become an operational and safety concern.
As manufacturers deploy more connected robots, autonomous systems and industrial IoT technologies, the line between functional safety and cybersecurity is getting harder to draw. Protecting workers and equipment now requires systems that can withstand both equipment failures and cyberattacks.
To do that, manufacturers and their security leaders need to bring functional safety, cybersecurity, operations and system integrators into the same planning process to build an OT security playbook that reflects the realities of connected industrial systems. The same urgency applies to new robot deployments and systems already in use.
In both cases, a cybersecurity issue can quickly become an operational problem.
Why connected factories need a new security approach
This type of risk has been demonstrated before, even if public reports of real-world robot compromise remain limited. The latest advisory follows years of warnings about connected industrial systems, including prior robotics-related advisories and research showing how compromised robot controllers can affect production, equipment behavior and safety.
What has changed is the scale of the exposure. In 2024, 542,000 industrial robots were installed globally, more than double the number from a decade earlier. At the same time, 90% of global manufacturers say digital transformation is essential to staying competitive, and 59% report already using smart manufacturing. That means more physical systems are becoming part of connected factory environments.
With these environments becoming more common, safety, security and operations leaders need to work with functional safety partners, integrators and equipment suppliers much earlier in the design process.
That kind of coordination requires clear rules for defining what gets assessed, who owns each decision, how changes are managed and how the organization responds when something goes wrong.
Where security and technology leaders should start
A modern OT security playbook starts by connecting cybersecurity decisions to the way robots move, operate, and affect production. These three priorities offer a practical starting point.
- Map the cyber-physical environment
A strong foundation starts with building a cyber-physical asset inventory and assessing what each system controls, how it operates, and what could happen if it is compromised.
That inventory needs to go beyond IP addresses, device models, and network locations. You also need to understand which robots can move, which controllers can be accessed remotely, which systems can change speed, paths, torque, and tool coordinates, and which devices could stop production if they fail.
The recent Universal Robots case shows the value of that visibility. You cannot respond quickly to a robot controller issue unless you know which controllers you have, where they are connected, and what those systems can affect.
But digital visibility is not enough. To prevent “signal spoofing” – where a system reports normal status while behaving maliciously – manufacturers should implement cross-validation. Using independent sensors, like external AI vision, ensures that physical movements actually align with control commands.
Threat modeling should also be included in the design and deployment process for robots and autonomous systems. Working with functional safety partners can help you identify where a cyber compromise could affect how a robot operates across both new deployments and existing systems.
- Control access to critical systems
You need secure architecture and access control processes that limit who can reach robot systems, how they connect and what they are allowed to change. Without those controls, one compromised entry point could create safety, quality, and production risks across the factory.
That includes segmenting your OT networks and isolating robot workstations and controllers. It also means tightening access through remote maintenance controls, multi-factor authentication, least privilege and vendor account lifecycle management.
The same process should account for secure communication and engineering change review.
- Prepare for cyber-physical incidents
It’s crucial to build monitoring, change management and incident response capabilities around what connected robots can affect: motion, production quality, equipment behavior and worker safety.
Traditional cybersecurity monitoring is not enough. You also need visibility into robot programs, control parameters, speed settings, firmware versions and unusual remote connections.
But visibility is only part of the equation. Your new OT security playbook should also define how your organization restores systems, shifts into manual safe mode, practices incident response and coordinates cybersecurity with functional safety.
Closing the gap between safety and security
Connected robots are changing what cybersecurity needs to account for. A compromise can now reach beyond data loss or network disruption and change how connected equipment performs in the real world.
For manufacturers and their security leaders, the next step is to align cybersecurity, functional safety, operations, and equipment partners around the same OT security strategy. Connected robotics is moving too quickly for safety and security decisions to wait until something goes wrong.
By then, the impact may already be showing up in production.
About the Author
KC Chen is Vice President of Technology at TMRTEK, a NEXCOM subsidiary, where he leads technology strategy and product development for industrial cybersecurity and OT security solutions. With extensive experience in industrial computing, embedded systems, and secure product design, he focuses on bridging practical engineering with cybersecurity compliance. He is dedicated to helping organizations build resilient, scalable, and future-ready solutions for critical industrial environments.
KC can be reached at our company website: https://www.nexcom.com/index.html.
