Shop floors in factories have come a long way - from traditional assembly lines to hyper-connected, smart factories with cloud-based analytics and IoT-based systems. Machines communicate with each other in real time, making speedy decisions and powering supply chains worldwide with precision data.
But this profound embedding of digital technologies is a massive challenge for manufacturing as it looks to deliver seamless connectivity with watertight security. Fragmented infrastructures, legacy systems, and surging cyberattacks pose threats to operational stability, revealing the limits of traditional, siloed IT security models and accelerating the need for a unified approach. Manufacturers need to embrace a strategy that converges networking and security in a single, cloud-native platform designed for the demands of modern enterprises.
The Biggest Risk to Smart Operations
As the manufacturing industry adopts smart technologies and interconnected workflows, it is confronted with an unsettling dilemma: digital ambition built on older infrastructure. Legacy industrial control systems (ICS) designed years ago without contemporary security controls are now being networked into cloud environments and IoT ecosystems.
Without encryption, access controls, or patching support, these systems can provide easy entry points to threat actors. Ransomware gangs take advantage of these vulnerabilities by way of lax authentication and unsecured remote access. The consequences are dire: lost revenue, regulatory penalties and long-term reputational damage.
Globalization has compelled companies to extend across boundaries, acquire new companies, and establish factories in remote areas, necessitating secure and extensible connectivity.
While most manufacturers continue to use MPLS, which is costly and logistically cumbersome, some have adopted SD-WAN for increased flexibility and easier implementation. However, SD-WAN may face challenges when supporting far-flung global operations.
Complying with peering agreements and having end-to-end visibility across a patchwork of carriers and regional ISPs makes operations and IT time management more difficult.
Cloud and SaaS Bottlenecks
Factory workflows of today rely tremendously on cloud applications. But the networks that drive them, particularly legacy MPLS networks, were not built for direct access to the cloud. They direct traffic to centralized locations, introducing delays that compromise real-time responsiveness and halt decision-making on the plant floor. For off-site engineers and remote teams, it means delays at the very moment when rapid insight and instant connectivity is needed.
Optimizing cloud access may involve point products, local load balancers, web proxies, or branch firewalls, resulting in a sprawl of disparate tools lacking inter-device communication. Each new appliance brought online introduces more complexity, maintenance requirements, and attack surface, illustrating how legacy tool sprawl limits IT efficiency and delays business agility.
Fragmented Toolsets and Operational Complexity
Manufacturers are frequently confronted with a combination of old and new platforms, each with their own user interface, data structure, configuration, and update cycle. This fragmented environment makes routine functions such as troubleshooting, patch management, and compliance monitoring more difficult. IT staff are stretched thin by all directions; fixing problems requires proficiency with multiple systems and command-line tools.
Meanwhile, data residing in siloed pockets slows down informed decision-making. Throw in multiple vendors as well as disconnected policies and the IT real estate gets even more complicated.
When companies merge, acquire others, or enter into joint ventures, blending their different networks and patchwork of security systems is an insurmountable challenge. Partner connections, factory operations, and data centers need to be securely linked, audited, and monitored, which takes months and puts the business at risk for an extended period.
Securing a Distributed Workforce
Workforces today are scattered across locations. Engineers troubleshoot issues remotely from home, contractors connect to factory systems, outside vendors upload design files using company platforms. The threat of cyberattack increases with each additional user, device, or application added to the mix.
Legacy VPNs and perimeter security fall short in today's dispersed manufacturing environments as they direct all network traffic through a single bottleneck, slowing everything down and causing single points of failure. In addition, most distributed security models do not support a zero-trust approach. Manufacturers are thereby left to bargain between sacrificing user experience for security, or relaxing controls to maintain productivity.
Manufacturers can address growing demands for robust security and unbroken connectivity by adopting a model known as Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), which converges networking and security into a single, cloud-native platform. Some of its main tenets include:
Cloud-optimized delivery. By directing all data to flow through a SASE platform, IT personnel can achieve the agility needed to scale, prioritize, and accelerate real-time data streams, providing high-speed access and a predictable experience to users and applications.
Converged network. SASE offers a worldwide, always-on digital infrastructure that links every location, device, application, cloud, and user. With uniform security policies enforced across the board, operations stay connected and defended, regardless of location.
Smart traffic. With the use of dynamic path selection and WAN optimization, SASE delivers data to its destination through the most efficient route, adding responsiveness to clouds and SaaS.
Built-in security. From firewalls and threat detection to SWGs, SASE loads the whole stack of security tools into its architecture, securing every packet of data in motion.
Zero Trust architecture: The zero trust tenets of SASE ensure only approved users and authenticated devices can access particular apps.
SASE enables manufacturers to secure important assets, expand globally, and deliver secure access to applications where their people and infrastructure are located. As organizations move from legacy tools to cloud-native platforms, SASE marks a generational shift—one that aligns security with business growth and provides the future foundation of industrial cybersecurity.
