Safety is protection against accidental harm, injury, or operational failure. In cyber security, it matters because many systems are not purely digital: industrial controls, medical devices, vehicles, cloud services, and critical infrastructure can turn a software error or misconfiguration into a physical or operational problem. A safety issue may come from bugs, bad updates, human mistakes, failed sensors, or unstable automation, rather than from an attacker.
Safety and security overlap when connected systems are involved. Security controls such as access control, network segmentation, change management, and monitoring help prevent intentional compromise, while safety controls such as fail-safes, redundancy, limits, and emergency shutdowns reduce the impact of accidental failure. Good governance keeps the two concepts distinct but coordinated, so teams can classify risk correctly and avoid fixing one problem in a way that creates another.