Your OT security proof-of-concept performed flawlessly. Six months later, the enterprise-wide rollout has stalled. Budgets are exhausted, and critical visibility gaps remain. If this sounds familiar, you're not alone.

Most industrial organizations discover that OT security solutions that work well in controlled pilots become unmanageable when deployed across hundreds of switches, thousands of assets, and multiple sites.

The stakes couldn't be higher-without comprehensive visibility you cannot effectively reduce the attack surface or implement network segmentation, and all it takes is a single compromised device that can shut down entire production lines, costing millions per hour.

The Hidden Cost of Bolted-On Security

Traditional OT visibility solutions rely on SPAN technology to mirror network traffic to dedicated sensor appliances. While this approach seems straightforward in a lab, it quickly becomes problematic at scale.

Consider a typical manufacturing plant with a hundred or more switches. Each switch needs a sensor appliance to capture local traffic, since most industrial communications happen at the cell layer between controllers. This east-west traffic occurs at the lowest levels of the Purdue model (Levels 0-2) and doesn't pass through the traditional north-south aggregation points that connect different zones to the industrial data center. That's 100+ appliances to purchase, deploy, power, cool, and maintain. The capital and operational costs spiral out of control.

Some vendors suggest using Remote SPAN (RSPAN) to reduce appliance count by forwarding traffic from multiple switches to centralized sensors. This approach backfires in production environments. RSPAN can double network traffic, introducing jitter that disrupts time-sensitive industrial processes. In highly automated facilities, this latency can slow production rates and break time synchronization between machines.

The alternative-building an out-of-band SPAN collection network-requires duplicating your entire network infrastructure. You need parallel switches, cabling, and maintenance resources. As your production network grows, so must this duplicated network. Many organizations abandon their deployments when they realize the true cost.

Why Partial Visibility Equals No Security

Even if you can't invest in a visibility solution, you might think that active discovery mechanisms will be sufficient for identifying assets. But Network Address Translation (NAT) will block these discovery requests.

Industrial equipment manufacturers standardize their machine configurations, reusing IP addresses across production cells. While PLCs and HMIs might have translated addresses visible at Level 3, the drives, safety controllers, and I/O modules below remain hidden. In automotive manufacturing, for example, 80% of Level 0-2 devices sit behind NAT boundaries, invisible to centralized discovery tools.

This visibility gap has serious consequences. You cannot secure what you cannot see. You cannot segment networks without understanding communication patterns. And you cannot comply with regulations like NERC CIP-15 or NIS2 without a complete and up to date asset inventory.

Most critically, attackers exploit these blind spots. They move laterally through the invisible east-west traffic between controllers, spreading ransomware or manipulating processes while defenders monitor the wrong places.

The Network-as-Sensor Revelation

Cisco takes a fundamentally different approach: instead of bolting on security appliances, we embed visibility and protection capabilities directly into network infrastructure. Cisco Cyber Vision runs as software within industrial switches and routers, using dedicated CPU cores to perform Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) without impacting network performance. Because it operates at the edge where devices connect, it sees all traffic and can actively query devices behind NAT boundaries.

Rather than duplicating entire traffic flows, Cyber Vision decodes IP and ICS protocols within the switch or router to extract only the metadata it needs, adding only 2-5% traffic to the network instead of the 50-80% burden of traditional approaches. No additional appliances. No SPAN collection networks. No performance degradation.

For brownfield environments with non-Cisco equipment, Cyber Vision deploys flexibly via Docker containers or virtual machines. These sensors process data locally and do not forward packets. Given that pricing is based on discovered endpoints and not number of sensors deployed results in seamless sensor deployment and scalability across brownfield environments.

Real-World Network-Native Success

Comprehensive visibility enables Zero Trust segmentation, essential for containing breaches and maintaining operations during incidents. But segmentation without complete visibility is dangerous-blocking legitimate traffic can shut down production.

Organizations deploying Cisco's network-native approach report immediate benefits beyond security. Complete visibility accelerates troubleshooting, reducing mean time to repair. Automated asset inventory simplifies regulatory audits. Having factual information about your OT security posture also helps IT and OT teams collaborate to implement best practices.

Most importantly, this approach scales. Whether you're securing a single plant or hundreds of sites globally, the model remains consistent: you can now achieve comprehensive industrial protection without operational complexity.

Your Path Forward

The choice is clear. Bolted-on approaches to industrial security result in adding operational complexity and cost that still leave gaps. Simply stated, this approach is not built to scale. Conversely, Cisco's approach turns your network into a security sensor and enforcement mechanism, making highly scalable industrial security a reality.

Start by assessing your current visibility gaps and identifying critical assets. Evaluate solutions based on scalability at production scale, not POC performance. Consider total ownership costs including hardware, network capacity, and operational overhead.

As industrial networks grow more complex and threats more sophisticated, the window for implementing effective OT security is narrowing. The question isn't whether to secure your OT environment, but whether you'll choose an approach that actually scales.

Ready to learn more? Visit cisco.com/go/cybervision or meet the team at the S4x26 conference in Miami Feb 23-26, 2026.

Click here for the Solution Brief: Gaining Visibility into Industrial Networks at Scale

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