Industrial IoT cybersecurity: a bibliometric analysis

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) cybersecurity has become critical to our societies as industrial systems increasingly rely on interconnected devices. Several literature studies exist regarding cybersecurity for IoT or security topics in Industry 4.0. Still, very few are exclusively dedicated to cybersecurity for IIoT—and they approach the subject non-systematically. In this study, we conduct a systematic bibliometric analysis of over 12,000 academic publications from 2014 to 2024 to map the research landscape of IIoT cybersecurity. Guided by eight Research Questions and a methodological approach, we examine publication types, key venues, and dominant topics to highlight trends and research clusters within the field. Our findings show that conference papers and journal articles are equally predominant, with IEEE and Springer serving as the leading publishers. Among the most cited works, "blockchain" is the most popular topic. A keyword co-occurrence analysis identifies four thematic clusters led by: (1) "blockchain" and "security," (2) "network security" and "industrial IoT," (3) "embedded systems" and "cyber-physical systems," and (4) "automation" and "network architecture." The first two clusters are the most prominent grouping 80% of the top 20 keywords. Regarding future trends, the growing prominence of "machine learning" and "intrusion detection," and a slight deceleration of "blockchain" in 2024, suggests shifting research priorities. We publicly share the bibliographic data and source code used to create this bibliometric analysis.