OT/ICS on the Front Burner: Last Week’s Advisories and a 7-Day Action Plan

November 10, 2025
 |  No Comments
Abstract ICS dashboard with PLC/HMI icons and a shield-plus-wrench, symbolizing OT patching and risk reduction.

IT Trends Weekly — a curated, citation-first roundup for busy IT leaders.

OT/ICS on the Front Burner: Last Week’s Advisories and a 7-Day Action Plan

Context. While many teams were still wrapping up October’s Patch Tuesday backlog, the operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS) space lit up with fresh advisories. On Nov 4, CISA published five ICS advisories; on Nov 6 it added four more — spanning vendors like Fuji Electric, Delta Electronics, Advantech, Ubia, and ABB.[CISA-Nov-4][CISA-Nov-6] CISA’s ICS page shows the specific bulletins (e.g., Fuji Electric Monitouch V-SFT-6; Delta Electronics CNCSoft-G2; Advantech DeviceOn/iEdge; Ubia Ubox; ABB FLXeon).[Fuji][Delta][Advantech][Ubia][ABB] For leaders responsible for plants, utilities, transit, smart-building, and EV/energy systems, these are not “nice to patch” notes — they directly shape risk in environments where uptime is king.

Browse prior issues on the IT Trends Weekly hub or subscribe here for weekly copy-paste checklists.

Table of contents

What happened (recap & scope)

Two drops, nine advisories. CISA released five ICS advisories on Nov 4 and four more on Nov 6 — part of its routine but crucial stream of vulnerability intelligence for industrial environments.[CISA-Nov-4][CISA-Nov-6] The weekly ICS list highlights products like Fuji Electric Monitouch V-SFT-6, Delta Electronics CNCSoft-G2, Radiometrics VizAir, Advantech DeviceOn/iEdge, Ubia Ubox, and ABB FLXeon Controllers, among others.[CISA-ICS-Index][Fuji][Delta][Radiometrics][Advantech][Ubia][ABB]

Why this week mattered. Advisory cadence is one thing; adjacent threat activity is another. In parallel, defenders continued to track active exploitation against key network gear — especially Cisco ASA/FTD — where CISA has an emergency directive in place and Cisco has documented new attack variants in early November.[ED-25-03][Cisco-Nov-5] Put plainly: edge devices and plant-floor controllers are both in scope for adversaries; your patch windows must reflect that reality.

Why it matters (beyond “apply all updates”)

  • Safety, uptime, and compliance converge. ICS issues aren’t just “IT vulnerabilities.” They can affect safety interlocks, environmental controls, and regulated processes. A single unpatched HMI/PLC engineering tool can be the pivot an attacker needs from IT to OT.
  • Air gaps are a myth. Most plants have data historians, remote maintenance pathways, or IIoT gateways — which means vulnerabilities in supporting software (e.g., engineering workstations like Monitouch V-SFT-6 or CNCSoft-G2) matter as much as the controller firmware itself.[Fuji][Delta]
  • Regulators read KEV and ICS bulletins too. The more a CVE shows up in CISA channels (KEV/ICS), the more it drives contractual SLAs and audit questions. Treat ICS advisories as board-visible signals, not just engineering notes.[CISA-Nov-4][CISA-Nov-6]

First 48 hours: what to do now

  • Inventory the impact perimeter (fast). From the CISA pages, build a quick list of vulnerable product families: Fuji Monitouch V-SFT-6; Delta CNCSoft-G2; Radiometrics VizAir; Advantech DeviceOn/iEdge; Ubia Ubox; ABB FLXeon. Match against your CMDB/asset register and against the engineering laptop images used by integrators and vendors.[CISA-ICS-Index]
  • Classify by consequence, not just CVSS. A medium-score vuln in an engineering workstation that can push logic to a controller may outrank a high-score vuln on a segmented, read-only historian. Prioritize by blast radius (safety, environmental, revenue).
  • Schedule narrow, reversible change windows. For HMIs and engineering tools, get vendor-approved patches or mitigations queued with a known rollback. Capture a pre-change backup (VM snapshot/image; PLC program backups), and test on a non-production workstation first.
  • Close remote maintenance exposures. If a vendor tunnel is required, enforce least-privilege jump boxes, time-bound access, MFA, and monitoring; no always-on plant VPNs. Add temporary IP allowlists for the window.
  • Correlate with edge risk. If you operate Cisco ASA/FTD or similar, align plant changes with network edge hardening: patch, verify management plane exposure, and confirm logging/telemetry integrity (attackers have disabled logs in recent campaigns).[ED-25-03][Cisco-Nov-5]

Operational realities (keep the plant running)

  • Engineer laptops are crown jewels. Many advisories hit configuration or development tools (e.g., V-SFT-6, CNCSoft-G2). Treat these laptops like privileged access workstations (PAWs): separate from email/browsing, monitored, and locked to known-good images.[Fuji][Delta]
  • Vendor exceptions happen — time-box them. If a vendor gatekeeps a patch until next quarter, issue a documented, time-boxed exception with compensating controls (network ACLs, app allow-listing, no USB authoring) and a date to re-review.
  • Stagger by cell/area, not by function. Group updates by physical/logic cell so you always have an adjacent known-good state to compare, and to limit simultaneous downtime.
  • Telemetry gaps are common. Many HMI/OT endpoints lack EDR. Where EDR is not feasible, increase network-based monitoring for the window (SPAN/TAP to an IDS; watch for unusual file shares or PLC project movements).

Evidence leaders want this week

  • Coverage by asset class: % of affected engineering workstations patched; % of HMIs updated; controller firmware status (where applicable).
  • Change safety: # of pre-change backups captured; # of successful rollbacks (if any); mean time to recover when issues occur.
  • Exposure proof: Remote access pathways documented (who/when/how); proof that vendor tunnels are time-bound and MFA-protected.
  • Edge alignment: ASA/FTD (or equivalent) version/patch status; management plane internet exposure = none; logging integrity verified.[ED-25-03][Cisco-Nov-5]
  • Exception register: Named owner, compensating controls, and re-review date for each vendor-blocked patch.

7-day follow-through

  • Days 1–2: Impact inventory; schedule change windows for engineering tools (Fuji/Delta/Advantech/Ubia) and HMIs where noted by advisories.[CISA-ICS-Index]
  • Day 3: Execute first cell/area; verify process KPIs and alarm behavior; capture evidence artifacts (screenshots of versions, signed change records).
  • Day 4–5: Complete remaining cells; review any vendor exceptions and tighten compensating controls.
  • Day 6: Network edge review: confirm ASA/FTD patch level; assure no internet-exposed management; verify logging hasn’t been tampered with.[ED-25-03][Cisco-Nov-5]
  • Day 7: 30-minute retro: one improvement to make next month faster (e.g., golden images for engineer laptops; an ICS-specific maintenance calendar; pre-approved windows by cell).

Biggest AI trend (blurb)

OpenAI’s $38B, 7-year AWS deal signals multi-cloud AI at scale. OpenAI and AWS announced a multi-year agreement giving OpenAI access to hundreds of thousands of Nvidia GPUs (and room to scale) — a notable shift for how enterprises think about vendor concentration and cloud portability for AI workloads.[Amazon][Reuters][Guardian] If your roadmap includes model hosting or on-prem/edge inference, anticipate more multi-cloud options — and more complex finops and data-sovereignty planning.

FAQ

CTA: Stay ahead each week

Subscribe to IT Trends Weekly for one concise, citation-first brief each week (with a copy-paste checklist).

imperialvalleyinfotech.com/it-trends-weekly/#subscribe

Sources & citations

  1. CISA — Releases Five ICS Advisories (Nov 4, 2025). :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}
  2. CISA — Releases Four ICS Advisories (Nov 6, 2025). :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}
  3. CISA — ICS Advisories index (vendor/product list). :contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}
  4. CISA — Fuji Electric Monitouch V-SFT-6 (ICSA-25-308-01). :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}
  5. CISA — Delta Electronics CNCSoft-G2 (ICSA-25-308-03). :contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4}
  6. CISA — Radiometrics VizAir (ICSA-25-308-04). :contentReference[oaicite:5]{index=5}
  7. CISA — Advantech DeviceOn/iEdge (ICSA-25-310-01). :contentReference[oaicite:6]{index=6}
  8. CISA — Ubia Ubox (ICSA-25-310-02). :contentReference[oaicite:7]{index=7}
  9. CISA — ABB FLXeon Controllers (ICSA-25-310-03). :contentReference[oaicite:8]{index=8}
  10. CISA — Emergency Directive 25-03 (Cisco ASA/FTD). :contentReference[oaicite:9]{index=9}
  11. Cisco — Updated advisory: new ASA/FTD attack variant (Nov 5, 2025). :contentReference[oaicite:10]{index=10}
  12. Amazon — AWS–OpenAI multi-year partnership. :contentReference[oaicite:11]{index=11}
  13. Reuters — OpenAI signs $38B, 7-year deal with AWS (Nov 3, 2025). :contentReference[oaicite:12]{index=12}
  14. The Guardian — OpenAI–AWS deal coverage. :contentReference[oaicite:13]{index=13}
IT Trends Weekly