About the OTI Impact Score

The concept of a standardized impact scale for operational technology cyber incidents was first proposed by Munish Walther-Puri at S4x25, drawing a parallel to how the Richter Scale gives the public an immediate, intuitive understanding of earthquake severity.

The idea resonated with Dale Peterson, founder of the S4 Conference and CEO of Digital Bond, who saw the potential to create something that could cut through the noise of sensationalized reporting and give non-technical audiences (reporters, elected officials, executives, and the general public) a fast, credible way to understand the actual impact of OT cyber events.

Peterson shaped the concept with key principles: it should be designed for the layperson, available within hours of an incident (not weeks), and crowdsourced from the OT security community so no single person or organization controls the outcome.

Dan Ricci, founder of the ICS Advisory Project, built the platform pro bono as a community support project, bringing the concept to life as a fully functional web application with real-time scoring capabilities and an expert voter panel.

The OTI Impact Score debuted at the S4x26 Conference in February 2026, where attendees scored three historical OT cyber incidents as the platform's first real-world test. The alpha launch validated the crowdsourced model and demonstrated that a panel of OT security professionals could rapidly converge on meaningful impact assessments.

Following S4x26, the platform went live for ongoing incident scoring, with new incidents evaluated by the voter panel as they occur. The goal: have a credible impact score available within 24 hours of an incident being reported, during the critical window when public narratives are being shaped.

OT cyber incidents are frequently over-sensationalized or mischaracterized in media coverage, leading to unnecessary hysteria and misallocation of critical security resources. Minor events get treated as catastrophic, while genuinely severe incidents may be downplayed or ignored.

The OTI Impact Score provides an objective, community-validated benchmark that helps the public, policymakers, and the media understand the actual scale of an incident. When someone asks “How bad was it?” the Impact Score gives a clear, defensible answer.