Data Center OT Risks: 6,300 ICS Devices Exposed Online in US
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Data Center OT Risks: 6,300 ICS Devices Exposed Online in US
The cloud and AI economy runs on data centers, but a new study suggests the physical systems that keep them cool, powered, and operational are dangerously exposed. Research published by TrendAI on August 18, 2026 identified 6,300 high-confidence industrial control systems (ICS) and building automation systems (BAS) devices directly reachable from the internet within one kilometer of 1,063 U.S. dat
Detail
Data centers have long treated operational technology as a back-office concern. This research reframes it as a primary attack surface, where a single exposed BACnet controller or Niagara platform can become a foothold into the cooling and power systems that keep an entire facility online.
TrendAI's researchers scanned ICS-specific protocols and cross-referenced results against a catalog of U.S. data center locations. The exposed inventory includes BACnet controllers, Niagara (Tridium) platforms, and Vertiv and Liebert data-center equipment , the very systems that manage cooling, power distribution, and environmental control.
Most striking is the geography. The devices were internet-accessible not in far-flung industrial plants but within 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) of active data center campuses. That proximity means an attacker who compromises an exposed building controller can move laterally toward the critical infrastructure it was designed to serve.
ENISA's 2025 Threat Landscape recorded 4,875 cybersecurity incidents between July 2024 and June 2025, with operational technology accounting for 18.2% of cases. Meanwhile, exposure of Modbus and S7/CODESYS PLC protocols continues to climb, compounding the attack surface described by TrendAI.
Traditional industrial cybersecurity relies on the Purdue Model, which isolates control-system Levels 1 through 3 behind a demilitarized zone (DMZ). TrendAI's findings indicate that these 6,300 devices bypass that DMZ entirely, creating direct pathways from the public internet to process-control layers.
When a BACnet controller managing cooling or a Niagara framework coordinating building automation is directly reachable through tools such as Shodan, the carefully designed security boundaries collapse. For PLC infrastructure, the lesson is blunt: segmentation is only as strong as the least-protected device on the adjacent OT network.
The Purdue Model assumes a clean hierarchy between IT, DMZ, and control layers. Internet-facing BAS devices break that assumption before a single firewall rule is evaluated. Operators should treat building automation as part of the PLC/ICS threat surface, not as an isolated facility system.
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