Every enterprise thinks they know what’s on their network. Until they don’t. When they don’t, security teams are paralyzed, compliance efforts stall, and attacks slip through unnoticed.

The root of the issue? A false sense of visibility in increasingly complex, interconnected environments. Smart factories. Smart medical devices. Self-driving cars. Today’s world is becoming more and more intertwined with cyber-physical systems.

Modern IT and OT systems and networks are under siege from a growing flood of alerts, fragmented tools, and unmanaged, specialized devices. Visibility is patchy, alerts are noisy, and security teams are stretched thin.

Traditional tools fall short — especially in specialized device environments where agent-based solutions don’t work.  And it’s also true in operational technology systems where devices are often proprietary and invisible to conventional methods.

At the same time, attackers aren’t slowing down. Research from Forescout’s Vedere Labs shows a widening range of attack-surface risk across OT systems, IT, IoT, and IoMT assets. In its latest findings, our researchers discovered 12 brand-new asset types on its annual Riskiest Devices report.

These blind spots are exactly what ransomware and supply chain attacks exploit. Don’t think it will happen to your company? It can. And in many cases, it can be a serious, sometimes fatal blow to a business, even with cyber insurance.

Take the case of KNP, a 150-year-old logistics company that went out of business last year after an Akira ransomware attack took control of its systems (and it had one million pounds in cyber insurance).

Visibility is the first control. It’s not a luxury. If you don’t know a legacy printer or a highly specialized medical device are internet-facing or behaving oddly, you’re already behind.

As the engineering leader responsible for the eyeSegment product and eyeSight product and DevOps infrastructure at Forescout, I’ve seen firsthand why having an accurate inventory and current snapshot of your assets is crucial to securing any network. Just like the rest of the software world, enterprise security is shifting left — and that shift starts with knowing what’s in your environment.

Real security begins long before a threat is detected. It begins with live, reliable asset intelligence.

 

Lead with Visibility, Scale with Control

At Forescout, we’ve built the Forescout 4D Platform™ designed to uncover and understand everything on your network:

  • OT Security: Reduce operational and security risk in converged OT systems and IT environments
  • Risk & Exposure Management: Identify, quantify and prioritize cybersecurity risk & compliance
  • Network Security: Assess, segment and enforce with proactive and reactive controls
  • Threat Detection & Response: Detect, investigate and respond to true threats and incidents

In healthcare, a vulnerability in a diagnostic device can be life-threatening. In manufacturing or energy, a misconfigured PLC can halt operations. OT environments can’t afford downtime—or visibility gaps. Our solutions address these risks with surgical precision. Consider these visibility facts we offer:

  • 23+ advanced discovery techniques both active and passive
  • Agentless, real-time insight into IT, OT, IoT, and IoMT environments
  • Vendor agnostic and thousands of integrations with leading cybersecurity and network vendors

And we don’t just stop at visibility. Each product across our platform suite plays a strategic control at-scale role:

  • eyeSight: Provides real-time deep visibility and control across IT, IoT, IoMT, and data center infrastructure
  • eyeInspect: Extends that visibility and control into operational technology environments, including fragile and compliance-sensitive devices
  • eyeSegment: Enforces intelligent segmentation and policy-based access controls
  • eyeFocus: Tracks device risk posture over time to inform security prioritization
  • eyeAlert: Adds contextual threat behavior analysis to streamline detection and accelerate response
  • eyeExtend: Share device context between the Forescout 4D Platform™ and other IT and security products, automate policy enforcement across disparate tools
  • eyeScope: Combines on-premises reliability with cloud agility to existing deployments through Forescout’s cloud
  • Flyaway Kit: Provides full-spectrum cybersecurity in air-gapped, remote, and isolated environments

Together, these solutions enable a continuous lifecycle—discover, assess, segment, enforce, and respond.

From Insight to Action: Real-Time Control & Ecosystem Integration

Forescout sits at the heart of the security stack, turning insight into automated action. We integrate seamlessly with existing security investments—EDR, SIEM, CMDB, and cloud platforms—and enable real-time policy enforcement across infrastructure without requiring agents.

  • Enforce segmentation policies dynamically
  • Quarantine or isolate based on behavior
  • Automate patch readiness and compliance
  • Trigger actions across AWS, ServiceNow, CrowdStrike, and more

Security budgets are increasing, but so is complexity. With most enterprises managing 40–70 security tools, interoperability is no longer optional. Forescout’s 142 integrations across leading platforms ensure orchestration, not fragmentation.

Security teams are managing tens of thousands of alerts per day. Most are false positives. Without actionable context, even critical alerts get lost—driving SOC fatigue and burnout. That’s why eyeAlert and eyeFocus don’t just enrich alerts; they help prioritize what matters.

And whether it’s HIPAA, NIS2, or DoD mandates — every compliance framework starts with knowing what’s on your network. Visibility isn’t just security. It’s audit readiness. We’ve seen how inventory gaps slow audits, delay patches, and expose critical assets.

Real-World Proof

This isn’t theory. Our platform is actively protecting some of the most complex environments in the world. For example, in one customer, we provide visibility across 1M+ endpoints, 30,000+ switches, and 6,000+ wireless controllers.

A major energy company uncovered over 235,000 assets in just one week, revealing an 80% gap in visibility compared to previous tools.

A Florida medical center identified dozens of biomedical and environmental devices that were previously invisible — enhancing patient safety and network control.

NJ TRANSIT uses Forescout’s data to drive accurate, real-time cybersecurity decisions across a massive transportation infrastructure.

A U.S. state government agency now leverages Forescout for critical situational awareness, allowing it to proactively resolve risks before they escalate.

See how we helped University Hospitals Birmingham when it consolidated four hospitals — without needing to expand security staff:

As IT and OT environments continue to converge, security leaders need simplicity, automation, and platform interoperability—not more complexity. You can’t patch what you don’t know. You can’t protect what you can’t see. And you can’t automate what you haven’t defined.

Security starts with visibility. But it scales with control.

And that’s where we lead.

See all of our customer success stories across manufacturing, healthcare, government, energy and utilities, financial services, and more industries.

About the Author:
Anil Mahale is a Director of Software Engineering at Forescout Technologies. He leads global teams across product engineering, security, platform, certifications, DevOps, and customer engineering, focused on building scalable, secure infrastructure for critical enterprise, OT, and government environments.