Building Resilience in Operational Technology: The Case for Cyber Resilient Asset Lifecycle Management (CRALM)

Why Now?

In an age where Operational Technology (OT) underpins critical manufacturing, utilities, and infrastructure sectors, the stakes have never been higher. From ransomware targeting industrial controls to escalating geopolitical threats, OT environments face a rising tide of cyber and operational risks.
And yet, most organizations continue to treat cybersecurity, asset management, and process safety as separate programs. This siloed approach leads to poor visibility, inconsistent controls, and significant exposure.
To meet today’s realities, we must move beyond compliance and embrace cyber-physical resilience. That’s where Cyber Resilient Asset Lifecycle Management (CRALM) comes in.

What is CRALM?

CRALM is a unified framework that ensures cybersecurity, process safety, and asset management are integrated across the entire lifecycle of OT assets. It enables organizations to secure not just their systems, but the entire journey of their industrial technologies—from planning to decommissioning.

This lifecycle-based approach closes the gaps that traditional frameworks often leave open.

Where Existing Frameworks Fall Short

While standards like ISA/IEC 62443 (cybersecurity), ISO 55001 (asset management), NIST CSF (governance), and DuPont PSM (process safety) offer critical guidance, they typically operate in silos.

CRALM doesn't replace these—it connects them.

CRALM Workflow Overview

The CRALM framework is built around six key phases. Each phase embeds processes to align safety, security, and asset performance with organizational governance:

1. Requirement Planning

Establishes the foundation for resilient implementation.

Activities include:

• Value Driven Business case validation
• IT/IS technical evaluation
• Investment classification based on criticality/complexity on components level of the solution
• Governance reviews and project charters

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2. Procurement

Ensures vendors, designs, and technologies align with secure-by-design principles.

Activities include:

• Vendor cybersecurity screening
• FAT and CFAT (Cybersecurity Factory Acceptance Test) planning and execution
• Relevant Commissioning Training program

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3. Commissioning

Incorporates security and safety controls before assets go live.

Activities include:

• Site-specific configuration and hardening
• CSAT (Cybersecurity Site Acceptance Test)
• PSSR (Pre-Startup Safety Review)
• Change control process and documentation
• Assets marking in the Enterprise Resource Planning solution

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4. Operations

Ensures continuous governance, monitoring, and threat detection.

Activities include:

• Role-based access and segmentation
• Incident response drills and testing
• Value Realization process

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5. Maintenance

Preserves operational and cyber integrity through proactive measures.

Activities include:

• Preventive maintenance for cyber and physical assets
• Policy compliance reviews
• KPI-based performance tracking
• Patching, Backup, Anti-virus solutions management

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6. Decommissioning

Secure end-of-life handling with traceability and risk mitigation.

Activities include:

• Data wiping and secure asset disposal
• Final audit trail closure
• Removal from active asset inventory
• Lessons-learned feedback loop

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Risk Management: Proactive, Integrated, and Continuous

Risk management in CRALM is not a checkbox—it's a continuous thread woven across the asset lifecycle. Traditional assessments like PHA and FMEA are extended to cover cyber-physical threats, ensuring that both safety and security risks are identified early, prioritized based on impact, and mitigated proactively.

Every component—whether it’s a firewall or a field instrument—is evaluated not just for operational reliability but for its exposure to threats and its role in system resilience.

By integrating risk into planning, procurement, commissioning, and operations, CRALM ensures you're not reacting to incidents—you're staying ahead of them.

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Case Study Highlight: The Aspen Project

In a real-world deployment, we used CRALM to guide a multi-component digital transformation project across our manufacturing facilities. Instead of treating it as a single monolithic rollout, we broke the project into logical components:
servers, network firewalls, data diodes, switches, and the Aspen application suite.

Each component underwent:

• IT/IS Review for compliance
• Cyber PHA & FMEA for risk discovery
• CFAT/CSAT for testing
• And governance through KPI tracking and incident readiness

Strategic assets like the data diode were resourced and governed differently due to their security
significance. The result: a streamlined deployment, minimal risk exposure, and accelerated value
realization.

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Getting Started with CRALM

Organizations looking to implement CRALM should start by answering three key questions:

1. Are your OT cybersecurity and asset workflows currently aligned—or disjointed?
2. Do your lifecycle activities include embedded governance and risk reviews?
3. Can you map out clear ownership and accountability across IT, OT, and safety teams?

From there, initiate CRALM in stages:

•Start with new or ongoing projects
•Use investment guidelines to break them into components
•Embed IT/IS reviews and risk assessments early
•Apply CFAT/CSAT and governance tracking consistently

You don’t have to overhaul everything at once—CRALM is scalable and modular.

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Resilience Is the Endgame

The future of OT isn’t just digital—it’s resilient. And resilience isn't about perfect protection—it's about intelligent preparation, rapid detection, and structured recovery. CRALM brings this mindset to life.
It's not just about compliance. It's about building secure systems that endure, adapt, and deliver value—through disruption, transformation, and beyond.

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Final Thought

In a world of converging risks and expectations, resilience is no longer optional.
CRALM offers a practical roadmap to get there—asset by asset, phase by phase.

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About the Author

Muhammad Rafi Mushtaq is an experienced OT cybersecurity and digital transformation specialist with over a decade of leadership across industrial sectors. He has led critical initiatives in process safety, asset lifecycle management, and cyber resilience at scale. Rafi is the architect of the Cyber Resilient Asset Lifecycle Management (CRALM) framework and a passionate advocate for securing the future of industrial operations through integrated, and practical solutions.

Muhammad Rafi Mushtaq | LinkedIn
rafimushtaq@yahoo.com
Interested in learning more about CRALM or collaborating on OT resilience? Feel free to connect or reach out.

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