Visibility is not the same as deception.
Visibility platforms such as Claroty, Dragos, and Nozomi help teams understand OT traffic, assets, and anomalies. Deception plays a different role: it gives teams a way to test whether an actor is touching an asset that should have no legitimate operational use.
The distinction matters for OT and ICS because reconnaissance can move quietly before damage is visible in normal operations. A deception pilot should therefore complement visibility work, not frame itself as a replacement for it.
For buyers, the practical question is not which tool category sounds stronger. It is whether the security team can add a controlled signal layer without creating avoidable operational risk.
Why scoped pilots fit this category.
A 6-8 week pilot lets a team test coverage against a slice of its own environment. Depending on environment and change-control constraints, the pilot should be scoped to minimise disruption and avoid rip-and-replace assumptions.
The output is not a generic product demo. It is evidence from the client's own operating context: placement options, interaction data, escalation path, and what the security team can do with that signal.
What the pilot should decide.
For OT and ICS environments, a useful pilot should decide whether decoys can be placed safely, whether existing monitoring teams can consume the signal, and whether governance teams are comfortable with the operating model.
It should also identify constraints early: maintenance windows, segmentation, remote-access patterns, SOC ownership, and how evidence would be reported to risk or resilience stakeholders.
Turn the point of view into a pilot.
Treacle i-Mirage pilot requests are routed directly to the ActusEdge campaign path.