Manufacturing Giant Secures OT Environment Without Production Impact

A global manufacturer operating 35 production facilities faced increasing pressure to secure operational technology environments. A ransomware attack on a competitor had shut down production for weeks, and board members demanded action.

However, previous security initiatives had caused unplanned production outages. IT security teams unfamiliar with OT protocols had disrupted SCADA communications during scanning. Operations leadership was understandably resistant to security involvement in manufacturing systems.

ELMET's approach began with passive asset discovery. Non-intrusive monitoring identified all OT assets, their communications patterns, and potential vulnerabilities without sending any traffic that could disrupt sensitive industrial protocols.

Network segmentation was implemented during planned maintenance windows, with extensive testing in lab environments first. The architecture isolated critical production systems while enabling secure remote access for maintenance and monitoring.

Continuous OT monitoring established behavioral baselines for industrial processes. The system could detect anomalies like unusual PLC commands or unexpected protocol traffic that might indicate compromise—without the false positives that active scanning would generate.

The results spoke for themselves: complete asset visibility across all facilities, 65% reduction in known vulnerabilities, and dramatically faster incident response—all achieved with zero production impact. Operations and security teams now collaborate effectively with shared visibility into OT environments.