SGL Carbon SE operates across 29 sites in Europe, North America, and Asia, manufacturing specialty graphite, carbon fiber, and composite solutions for industries that run on precision: semiconductor fabs, renewable energy infrastructure, and climate-focused mobility. That's a sprawling attack surface - OT networks threading through production lines, proprietary process data flowing across continents, and IP that competitors would very much like to have. The company's material science is its moat; protecting it means securing both the digital and physical layers of industrial operations.
The threat model here isn't abstract. Semiconductor-grade graphite production involves tightly controlled processes where a compromised sensor or tampered data pipeline could mean scrapped batches or worse. Carbon fiber composites feed into aerospace and automotive supply chains where integrity of digital twins and design files is non-negotiable. Across 29 sites spanning three continents, the challenge scales: network segmentation between legacy OT and modern IT, secure remote access for distributed teams, and supply chain integrity across partners who touch everything from raw material inputs to finished composites.
SGL Carbon's technical domains - specialty graphite, carbon fiber, and composite solutions - map directly to sectors where cybersecurity failures have real-world physical consequences. The company values collaboration and cross-border knowledge sharing, which for a security team means building frameworks that enable mobility and flexible working without widening exposure. Development opportunities and internal mobility suggest a security function that needs to evolve alongside the business, not just bolt on controls after the fact.
