Ali Recai Yekta

CTO & Head of Cybersecurity

Ali Recai Yekta is CTO and Head of Cybersecurity at Yekta IT. His work centres on pentesting and cyber defence for the energy, automotive and rail sectors. He holds an M.Sc. in IT security and is certified OSCP, OSEP, OSWE and CRTO.

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OT-Sicherheit · Ali Recai Yekta

Attacks on critical infrastructure: US water utilities in the crosshairs

At the end of July 2026 the FBI and the EPA issued a public warning (PSA I-073026). Since 27 July, water and wastewater utilities in at least seven US states have reported attacks, in some cases with operational effects. The targets were Rockwell/Allen-Bradley MicroLogix 1100 and 1400 controllers that were openly reachable from the internet. In parallel, more than 30 municipal water systems in Minnesota were attacked.

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Pragmatism in the OT SOC: how plant monitoring works in practice

OT-Sicherheit · Ali Recai Yekta

OT Security Made Simple podcast: pragmatism in the OT SOC

On "OT Security Made Simple" I talked to Klaus Mochalski about building OT SOCs. One point from it is worth repeating here. In OT security monitoring, the tools above all create visibility. On that basis the security team and the OT team take the decisions together.

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Konferenzen & Events · Ali Recai Yekta

VATT&EK framework presented at the ACM CSCS conference

VATT&EK. Intelligent transport systems in automotive and rail face a growing number of cyber threats.

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Branchen & Kritische Infrastruktur · Ali Recai Yekta

Security Operations Center for Multi Modal Transport Systems

At the 17th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security in Vienna, Ali Recai Yekta presented our work on a Vehicle Security Operations Center for multi-modal transport systems.

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Forschung & Projekte · Ali Recai Yekta

Applied OT security research: field experience from KRITIS sectors in rail and energy

A look back at the Forschungstag Cybersicherheit NRW: which results from our work in rail and energy environments we showed there, and what holds up in practice.

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OT malware against water supply: ZionSiphon

OT-Sicherheit · Ali Recai Yekta

ZionSiphon: OT malware against Israeli water supply

On 16 April 2026 Darktrace published an analysis of malware called ZionSiphon, aimed at Israeli water and desalination plants. Dragos had examined the sample in March and reads ZionSiphon as an immature attempt at OT malware, possibly written with the help of an LLM. As a single sample it is not threatening. What it says about the threat landscape is worth reading anyway.

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IT-Sicherheit · Ali Recai Yekta

One month of Log4j: what did we learn?

For this analysis of the Log4j attacks we evaluated the data from our own honeypots and servers. With Log4Shell, the first hours decide the outcome.

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The path from an open VPN into the control system

OT-Sicherheit · Ali Recai Yekta

Coordinated cyber attacks on Poland's energy sector

On 29 December 2025 a wave of coordinated attacks hit at least 30 wind and solar farms, a combined heat and power plant and a manufacturing company in Poland. The CERT.pl report on it is worth reading closely. The attacks were not about extorting money; they were sabotage of critical infrastructure.

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OT-Sicherheit · Ali Recai Yekta

OT security for SMEs: the risk nobody sees in industry

A talk from IT-Sicherheitstag NRW 2024 on the growing threats to industrial control systems. Ali Recai Yekta took apart a dangerous assumption: a successful attack on industrial systems does not require OT specialists.

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FINESSE, automotive and railway security, Yekta IT

Forschung & Projekte · Ali Recai Yekta

The FINESSE research project: our contribution to vehicle security

What Yekta IT contributes to the FINESSE consortium: attack detection for road and rail, from the sensor in the vehicle to the security operations centre of the operator.

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