The realities of the modern world order are objectively related to the complication of technological processes: the embedding of specific subjects in them, the use of artificial intelligence and artificial intelligence technologies, as well as the expansion of regulation on an ever greater range of social relations. These factors focus on the modernization of legal regulation in the field of protection of industrial facilities. We analyze the legal definitions of industrial safety and formulate the objectively present difficulties in identifying its content component. We consider and group the basic approaches to the interpretation of industrial safety existing in science. When forming a legal definition that most fully reflects the essence of the category under study, it is proposed to highlight the aspects that should be taken into account in the further study of industrial safety and improvement of the current legislation, namely: a complex of threats of various origins, a set of protected interests and activities of industrial safety ensurers. We make an attempt of the author’s interpretation of industrial safety as a specific area of public relations in the industrial sphere. The streamlining of such relations to a large extent occurs with the help of technical norms, where there is invariably a more detailed regulation of complex operations and processes. An appeal to the history of the regulation of industrial production in the Russian Empire made it possible to draw generalizations and conclusions about the need for further study of this category in order to minimize risks and prevent global man-made disasters. Understanding the legal nature of industrial safety can be important for more effective regulation of complex legal relations in the industrial sector of the economy.