Securing World Models & Digital Twins: The Next Critical Attack Surface for Operations

Digital twins are quickly turning from “visual dashboards” into decision engines that can recommend—or automate—real operational actions. In this talk, I will explain how that shift creates a new attack surface: instead of only stealing data, adversaries can manipulate telemetry, model behavior, or simulation assumptions to quietly drive bad decisions in warehousing, logistics, and manufacturing. I will illustrate a simple threat model across the Sense → Model → Act loop and show where integrity failures, poisoning, and policy-bypass attempts can cause real business impact. Attendees will leave with a practical, vendor-neutral security blueprint: provenance and attestation for inputs, tamper-evident model and simulation assets, drift/twin–reality divergence monitoring, and policy-gated actuation with safe escalation for high-risk actions. If you’re planning to deploy digital twins or world-model-driven automation, this session will help you ask the right questions, prioritize controls, and avoid turning your “optimization engine” into an unprotected control plane.