Report
Manufacturing in the Crosshairs: How Zero Trust Architecture Secures the Future of Smart Factories
This executive brief examines why smart factories need Zero Trust as Industry 4.0 connects OT, IoT, AI, remote teams, and third-party suppliers. It highlights manufacturing’s high exposure to IoT malware, ransomware, supply chain compromise, factory-floor attacks, unsecured sensors, and risky vendor access. The report explains that legacy VPNs and perimeter tools create excessive access and allow attackers to move laterally across IT and OT environments, threatening uptime, safety, intellectual property, and production continuity. It recommends a five-step Zero Trust journey: define strategy, secure user access to IT and OT systems, protect internet and SaaS access, secure cloud workloads and smart manufacturing, and optimize for Industry 4.0. The goal is resilient security at scale today.
