Elisity Top Microsegmentation Challenges and Goals Across the Manufacturing Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Industries

This Elisity presentation at Network Field Day 36 focuses on how the convergence of IT and OT networks has created unique cybersecurity challenges across manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and healthcare sectors, where legacy systems, unmanaged devices, and critical operations intersect. This technical talk explores how microsegmentation addresses the distinct security requirements of these regulated industries.

In manufacturing environments, the primary challenge lies in securing industrial control systems that often run on legacy operating systems and utilize proprietary protocols. Organizations must maintain IEC 62443 compliance while enabling secure communication between production zones, enterprise IT systems, and remote access points. Critical goals include protecting intellectual property in manufacturing execution systems (MES) while ensuring zero operational downtime.

Pharmaceutical companies face the additional complexity of FDA-regulated environments where Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) systems require both rigorous access controls and detailed audit trails. These organizations need microsegmentation solutions that can isolate quality control systems, laboratory information management systems (LIMS), and research data while maintaining strict regulatory compliance. Healthcare institutions struggle with an explosion of IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) devices that can’t support traditional security agents.

Meeting 405(d) HICP guidelines requires organizations to implement microsegmentation without disrupting critical care devices or patient monitoring systems. The challenge intensifies with the need to segment clinical networks from billing systems while maintaining HIPAA compliance.

Learn how modern microsegmentation architectures and platforms like Elisity address these challenges. You’ll see how Elisity’s Identity-based microsegmentation platform enables policy enforcement at the network edge, leveraging existing switch infrastructure for policy enforcement.

Learn why success requires continuous asset discovery, automated policy recommendations based on learned traffic patterns, and the ability to enforce segmentation policies without requiring hardware refresh or network redesign.