Microsoft & Dragos: Securing Physical Assets from Threats

As organisations integrate AI into their physical assets, operational cybersecurity resilience becomes a necessity. 

Underlining this severity, software giant Microsoft and industrial cybersecurity specialist Dragos have confirmed an expanded collaboration that puts IT and OT security at the heart of digital transformation. 

Dragos, a Leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for CPS (Cyber-Physical Systems) Protection Platforms, is bidding to bring security to industrial and critical infrastructure as global cyber threats mount. 

“As connectivity and AI extend deeper into physical operations, a rapidly growing number of organisations face increasing pressure to modernise without increasing security risk,” says Robert M. Lee, CEO and Co-Founder of Dragos. 

“Microsoft recognises both the scale and strategic importance of operational technology security. By deeply integrating the Dragos Platform across the Microsoft ecosystem, we’re enabling customers to pursue digital transformation with confidence – without compromising the specialised protections operational environments demand.

“This collaboration reflects a shared commitment to long-term cyber resilience for the systems that power and advance our world.”

Growing need for OT security 

Data from MarketsandMarkets predicts the global OT security market to grow at a 16.5% CAGR – from US$23.5bn in 2025 to US$50.3bn by 2030.

This predicted growth is reflective of the rise in cyber threats that target the physical assets of enterprises as they accelerate digital transformation, cloud adoption and AI-driven change.

“By deeply integrating the Dragos Platform with Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Sentinel, we’re giving energy and industrial customers a streamlined way to unify IT and OT security operations in the environments they already use,” says Darryl Willis, Corporate Vice President, Energy & Resources Industry at Microsoft.

“Our collaboration helps asset-intensive industries accelerate cloud and AI innovation while strengthening the safety, reliability and resilience of the critical systems that power businesses and communities.”

How to secure cyber-physical systems 

Industries that are dependent on assets – including manufacturing, energy and utilities, defence, natural resources, transportation and mobility, life sciences, building automation, logistics and food and beverage – require top-tier, sector-aware, OT visibility and protection. 

As traditional OT security gives way to modernisation, enterprises require deep industrial protocol visibility, asset-aware threat detection and OT-specific intelligence which correlate directly to the threats on the ground. 

With the collaboration between Dragos and Microsoft, users can gain direct access to OT security architecture which is already integrated into their familiar Microsoft environments.

Beginning in Q1 of 2026, the Dragos platform will support software as a service deployments in Azure. Microsoft Sentinel allows unified threat detection, investigation and response from the OT-specific telemetry, threat intelligence and asset context from Dragos that flow into Sentinel. 

Nick Shaw, VP of Product at Dragos, writes on LinkedIn: “The Dragos Platform now deploys on Microsoft Azure, integrates natively with Microsoft Sentinel and is available through Microsoft Marketplace. 

“This gives organisations across manufacturing, energy, utilities, defence, transportation and other asset-centric sectors a streamlined path to unify IT and OT security operations while maintaining purpose-built protections for operational environments.”