To help companies keep their operational technology (OT) environments secure, Palo Alto Networks has introduced Industrial OT Security, a comprehensive zero trust solution.

According to the company, a key component of the solution is the new cloud-delivered industrial OT security service, which can be easily enabled — without the need to install additional sensors — by any of the active customers of Palo Alto Networks network security products: hardware and software Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFW) and Prisma SASE.

Built on an AI-powered foundation, the company says Industrial OT Security enables customers to secure their OT environments from the most sophisticated threats while simplifying their operations.

OT devices can be hard to secure because many lack built-in security and were not designed to be patched. In addition, high uptime requirements limit the ability to do regular security maintenance. OT environments are also at risk as organizations adopt new technologies like 5G, which enable mass connectivity and open up remote access.

Palo Alto Networks explains that, using the industry’s first machine learning-powered OT visibility engine, the Industrial OT Security service recognizes hundreds of unique OT device profiles, over 1,000 OT/industrial control system (ICS) applications and has hundreds of distinct OT threat signatures to help protect these hard-to-secure assets.

“Most OT security solutions in the market fall short because they can’t identify all the assets and can only alert but don’t prevent threats. This leads to a patchwork of siloed security technologies, which can lead to security gaps,” said Anand Oswal, Senior Vice President, Network Security at Palo Alto Networks.

“Our OT security solution is designed to help organizations stay secure through granular visibility and effective inline security while meeting their availability and uptime requirements.”