Abstract
Most cybersecurity roadmaps don’t plan for 20-year-old firmware, but that’s the reality of operational technology (OT). In this episode, Cassie Crossley, Vice President of Supply Chain Security in the Global Cybersecurity & Product Security Office at Schneider Electric, offers a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to secure industrial systems, from chips to code.
Cassie explains why crypto agility isn’t just about algorithm swaps, it’s a long-haul architectural rethink. She unpacks how Schneider built a five-year roadmap with CTO support, how they tackled challenges like legacy devices, hardware constraints, and root-of-trust dependencies, and why threat modeling needs to evolve for future-ready product design.
From hardware bill of materials (HBOM) to the rising importance of crypto BoMs, Cassie outlines the real work behind securing infrastructure that can’t just be patched or replaced. Whether you’re building new systems or protecting the old ones, this episode will change how you think about quantum readiness in the physical world.
What You’ll Learn:
- Why crypto agility is more than swapping out encryption algorithms
- How OT systems differ from IT in post-quantum readiness
- Why Schneider created a five-year PQC roadmap (and what surprised them)
- The role of supply chain transparency in future-ready security
- How hardware constraints shape real-world security architecture
- Why pacemakers and PLCs aren’t treated the same, but should both be secure
- How to drive leadership buy-in without waiting for a breach
- What quantum security means in environments that still run TLS 1.0
Cassie Crossley is Vice President of Supply Chain Security in the Global Cybersecurity & Product Security Office at Schneider Electric. An experienced cybersecurity executive with a background spanning IT, product development, and data privacy, Cassie brings deep technical and strategic leadership to the challenges of securing operational technology (OT) and global supply chains. She has led major initiatives in software and hardware supply chain security and secure development across complex industrial environments. Cassie is also the author of Software Supply Chain Security: Securing the End-to-End Supply Chain for Software, Firmware, and Hardware, and a frequent speaker on advancing cybersecurity resilience in critical infrastructure.
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