Our Most Frequently Asked Questions in 2025

Cybersecurity for operational technology (OT) has reached a turning point. Devices that were once “dumb” (analog or primitive digital) are now becoming “smart.” In other words, they are now endowed with the ability to run installable applications and connected to other highly interconnected systems. 

Once where there were only closed, self-contained environments, there are now highly interconnected, highly flexible, and as a result, highly vulnerable systems. Threats are accelerating, and the attack surface continues to expand. 

But the cybersecurity industry keeps repeating the same pattern: it attempts to protect these systems using the same, mostly ineffective tools to protect information technology (IT) systems.

Crytica Security’s system was created to break that pattern. Not with another dashboard, not with another behavioral engine, but with a new model of malware detection designed specifically for OT.

Throughout last year, we heard the same questions from industry leaders, engineers, and operation managers. Below are our most frequently asked questions in 2025 and how Crytica’s Rapid Detection & Alert (RDA) system answers them.

How does RDA detect malware at injection?

Most cybersecurity tools suffer from three insufficiencies when it comes to the OT environment:

1. They detect attacks by relying on known malware signatures or historical patterns of malicious behavior, leaving truly new and innovative attacks — including those generated or adapted by AI — undetected.
2. They rely on AI-driven or probabilistic detection algorithms which, by their nature, generate large numbers of false positives (i.e. alerts that do not correspond to real threats).
3. They depend on large, resource-intensive agents that cannot operate inside many OT devices and instead rely on remote monitoring via logs or network traffic, which sophisticated malware can readily emulate to evade detection.

Crytica takes a very different approach. 

RDA detects malware the moment it is injected into a device — before it launches, before it spreads, and before it can disable defenses. It does this through:

• A deterministic, binary model that does not produce false positives.
• A “probe” (i.e., a software agent), that is so small and efficient it can fit inside almost any OT device.

The underlying premise of the RDA’s algorithm is that:

• Every computing device has a defined set of authorized instruction sets.
• Any unauthorized change — whether added, deleted, or modified — to instructions or associated permissions/owners must be flagged immediately.

With the Crytica RDA, there are no signatures, no behavior profiles, and no probabilistic scoring. This is malware detection by mathematical certainty, not prediction. Given that typical dwell time is measured in months, this capability to detect within minutes fundamentally changes the equation.

Why is internal detection essential for OT security?

External-only monitoring has become the industry’s default for OT, and it’s flawed by design. Sophisticated malware can:

• Mimic normal traffic
• Fake log entries
• Report “all normal” when queried
• Operate silently until triggered

In other words, you can’t always trust what a device tells you about itself, not when that device might be infected and it is the malware talking.

Crytica solves this by placing a lightweight, continuous probe inside each and every device. Internal device monitoring is not a luxury for OT. It's the only viable way to detect malware that can spoof every external indicator.

How lightweight is the Crytica probe? Can it actually fit inside OT devices?

Yes. And, and for industry leaders, this remains one of the most surprising facts about the RDA system.

Crytica’s probes were built specifically for constrained OT and IoT environments — devices with limited memory, tight CPU budgets, and little tolerance for anything that disrupts performance. 

A Crytica probe:

• Has a footprint as small as ~100 KB in Linux
• Is written in extremely compact, efficient C code
• Scans millions of files in seconds
• Runs continuously with only minimal (and often undetectable) performance impact

If your device can run a basic application-layer process, RDA can run inside it.

Can RDA detect polymorphic, preemptive, or AI-generated malware?

Yes, because Crytica ignores everything these malware families are designed to exploit. Polymorphic malware attempts to change shape. Preemptive (hunter-killer) malware attempts to disable defenses before they’re aware of its presence. AI-generated malware evolves dynamically.

All three rely on defeating signature-based or behavior-based detection. Crytica bypasses all of these attack vectors by detecting unauthorized instruction-set changes — the single action no malware can avoid. When malware enters a device, it must modify the resident instruction set. That moment is when Crytica detects it.

Why doesn’t Crytica rely on AI to detect malware?

AI has its place, but malware detection in OT is not one of them. Here’s why:

• AI is inherently probabilistic, meaning false positives are unavoidable.
• Attackers have access to equal or even better AI models than we do.
• AI requires heavy computations, constant connectivity, and continuous data training.
• OT environments can’t afford that overhead or that uncertainty.

Crytica uses deterministic logic. Either an unauthorized change has occurred or it hasn’t. That clarity is exactly what OT operators need: no noise, no guesswork, no escalating analyst fatigue.

What is the Crytica “resilient mesh,” and why does it matter?

Traditional cybersecurity architectures often have a critical weakness: single points of failure. If a component is compromised, the system collapses.

Crytica’s architecture eliminates that risk. RDA uses a proprietary, patented, mutually monitoring mesh of components where:

• Probes monitor devices
• Detectors monitor probes
• Components verify each other's integrity via a patented heartbeat
• Any compromised component can be discarded and automatically replaced

Crytica isn’t designed to simply stand upright forever. It’s designed to absorb attacks and keep functioning, even under sustained attacks against itself.

Can RDA operate in low-connectivity or semi-isolated OT environments?

Yes. And this is another critical advantage over cloud-dependent tools. Crytica does not require:

• Constant internet connectivity
• Large signature updates
• Cloud scoring models
• Continuous data uplinks

If connectivity drops, probes continue scanning. Alerts are delivered the moment communication resumes. For semi-isolated or intermittently connected OT systems, RDA fits the operational reality.

Can RDA detect performance issues or system degradation?

Yes, this is an additional capability of the RDA system. The RDA detector continually tracks each probe’s scan-time patterns. When a device begins to slow down due to resource exhaustion, firmware instability, or hardware/software issues, its scan durations change.

The RDA system alerts on these anomalies, giving operators early warning before a minor degradation becomes a critical outage.

How does RDA integrate with existing solutions? What systems does it support?

Crytica’s RDA is not designed to replace your EDR, NDR, XDR, SIEM, or log management systems, but to complement and fill the blind spot those tools cannot reach. RDA integrates easily via APIs, sending precise deterministic alerts that help your existing tools respond faster. 

It was also built to run where most cybersecurity agents cannot. The RDA system supports:

• Linux and embedded Linux
• Raspberry Pi and small-form-factor systems
• Windows
• Mac
• IoT/OT devices with limited memory and CPU
• Legacy systems with strict resource constraints

Why was Crytica’s RDA written in C language, and why does that matter?

Using a highly efficient compiled language such as “C” matters in OT because efficiency matters in OT. By writing the probe in highly optimized compiled language, one that has C’s unmatched portability:

• Footprint stays extremely small
• CPU usage remains minimal
• The probe runs reliably across most Linux distros, embedded systems, and IoT devices
• Compatibility issues are dramatically reduced
• Performance remains consistent even on older or resource-limited hardware

Most cybersecurity agents are far too large and resource-intensive for OT. Crytica was engineered from the ground up for devices that cannot run anything else.

What actually triggers an alert in Crytica’s RDA system?

Crytica alerts on a single category of events: unauthorized changes to a device’s instruction sets. That includes:

• Added instruction sets
• Deleted instruction sets
• Modified instruction sets
• Changes to permissions, ownership, and critical metadata
• Performance anomalies

Because this model is deterministic, every alert is actionable. There are no thresholds, no “low-confidence” events, and no “possible threat behavior” notifications. You either have a change that violates policy, or you don’t.

Why Choose Crytica for Cybersecurity in 2026

Traditional cybersecurity tools were not built for OT. They depend on signatures, behavioral heuristics, and AI models that can be deceived or overwhelmed. In the OT realm, they operate outside the device, relying on signals modern malware is engineered to manipulate. As we move into 2026, cyber attackers are evolving faster than the tools meant to detect them. 

That’s why we developed the Rapid Detection & Alert system. 

The RDA system delivers lightweight, deterministic detection inside devices — even those with limited resources. It identifies malware at injection, eliminates false positives, provides early insight into performance degradation, and continues operating even under attack through a resilient, mutually monitoring mesh.

If you’re rethinking your OT security strategy for 2026, Crytica’s Rapid Detection & Alert is the model built for what’s next. Reach out to our team for a live demo of the RDA system.