SEOUL, 16 October 2026 – SSenStone, an OT security specialist built on its proprietary OTAC technology, has joined a national R&D project run by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) and the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA), titled ‘Development of Physical AI-Based Multi-Layer Security Technology for Collaborative Intelligence Systems’. As a joint R&D organisation, SSenStone will take charge of developing security technology for the OT layer, where commands from physical AI turn into the actions of real industrial equipment.
SSenStone has formed a consortium with lead organisation RaonSecure, Jeonbuk National University, Sogang University and other partners to develop the multi-layer physical AI security technology required for dark factory environments. Within the consortium, SSenStone is responsible for developing technology for OT endpoint protection, control command analysis and control, and AI-based anomaly detection and response, based on its proprietary OTAC (One-Time Authentication Code) technology.
In physical AI, the decisions an AI makes become control commands, and those commands move real equipment. So alongside the safety of the AI model, the OT communications that carry those commands, and the stages at which equipment is accessed and commands are executed, must also be secured. Unauthorised access or a tampered command along the way can lead to equipment damage, production stoppages and harm to people.
Dark factories keep human involvement in production to a minimum, but equipment still needs maintenance, control logic is still modified and settings still change. SSenStone’s work centres on these moments, identifying and authenticating who is accessing equipment and which commands they are running, and controlling whether each action stays within the permitted scope. The core aim is to block unauthorised access and dangerous control actions while keeping normal autonomous operations running without interruption.
OTAC is a one-way dynamic token technology. Rather than relying on real-time, two-way communication with a server, the client generates a dynamic authentication code and sends it in one direction to identify and authenticate users, devices and commands. In this project, SSenStone will extend OTAC-based identification and authentication to protect OT communications and control individual commands.
SSenStone stresses that a response centred on monitoring and detection alone has limits when it comes to stopping unauthorised control commands from turning into real equipment actions, and that a security framework is needed to authenticate access to equipment and to verify and control whether each command should be allowed before it is executed. Through this project, SSenStone will fully implement its ‘Pre-execution Control’ framework, stopping threats before they lead to actual equipment operation.
As global markets move to mandate Security by Design from the device design stage, with regulations such as the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) and the NIS2 Directive, SSenStone’s technology offers the most practical way to meet international standards such as IEC 62443 without large-scale replacement of existing equipment.
“When AI is controlling real industrial equipment, you have to be able to verify where each command comes from and whether it is intact, and trust that it is an authorised command,” said Chang Hun Yoo, CEO of SSenStone. “Through this project, we will complete a world-leading OT security standard model that can be applied immediately to existing industrial equipment, and lead an ecosystem that enables Korea’s manufacturing and robotics industries to expand safely into global markets.”
SSenStone has recently applied its OTAC-based security solutions successfully at national critical infrastructure and major industrial sites, including a global battery solutions manufacturer and water treatment facilities, and is rapidly expanding its technological presence in the global OT security market.