Following Operation Epic Fury on February 28, 2026, Iranian-aligned cyber actors are expected to escalate retaliatory attacks within days to weeks. Critical Start's CRU assesses medium-to-high confidence of disruptive operations targeting U.S. critical infrastructure, with MuddyWater, Pioneer Kitten, and Nimbus Manticore leading the charge.

Manufacturing dethroned Banking and Finance as the #1 targeted industry in H2 2025. Critical Start's Cyber Research Unit analyzed 1,000+ high-severity alerts to reveal why threat actors are shifting targets, how they're 'logging in' instead of breaking in, and the containment-first defense strategy that works.

MDR marketing claims '5-minute response time' but contracts hide loopholes. Critical Start's CTO Randy Watkins reveals the SLA gotchas—Service Level Objectives with zero teeth, metrics that track triage not response, and 60-day onboarding exclusions—plus the accountability checklist that separates real commitments from empty promises.

Can you fast-track your OT security program? Critical Start and GuidePoint Security reveal the crawl-walk-run methodology: start with asset visibility and crown jewel identification, progress to continuous 24/7 monitoring via existing IT infrastructure, and mature into micro-segmentation and threat hunting—without the vendor language gap that blocks IT and OT alignment.