Elisity | Best OT Security Platform | Cybersecurity Stars Awards 2026

Overview

Elisity is an identity-based microsegmentation company that helps enterprises stop lateral movement, prevent ransomware spread, and meet compliance and cyber insurance requirements across IT, OT, and IoT environments. The Elisity platform discovers every device on an organization's network, enforces least-privilege access policies through existing network infrastructure, and delivers full microsegmentation in weeks - without agents, additional hardware, or network re-architecture.

Elisity is trusted by Fortune 500 healthcare systems, global manufacturers, and pharmaceutical companies including GSK, Main Line Health, Shaw Industries, and St. Luke's University Health Network. Founded in 2019, Elisity is headquartered in San Jose, California.

Key Capabilities

KEY CAPABILITIES / FEATURES

Industrial environments - factories, pharmaceutical plants, water and energy infrastructure, building systems - have become some of the highest-value targets for cybercriminals and nation-state actors. The reason is straightforward: a single compromise inside an operational technology (OT) environment can halt production, threaten worker safety, or trigger an environmental incident, and ransomware operators know it.

Yet most enterprises have struggled to extend modern security controls into OT because the equipment on the plant floor - programmable logic controllers (PLCs), human-machine interfaces (HMIs), robotic arms, building automation, and industrial sensors - physically cannot run security software, sits on flat networks, and cannot be taken offline for upgrades.

The Elisity Microsegmentation Platform was purpose-built to solve OT segmentation without disrupting production. It delivers identity-based microsegmentation on the network infrastructure manufacturers and critical-infrastructure operators already own, with no agents on devices, no rip-and-replace, and no production downtime. The platform implements the Zones and Conduits architecture defined in IEC 62443 - the international cybersecurity standard for industrial automation and control systems - in software. Security teams group OT assets into zones by function and security level, and the platform enforces controlled communications between zones (conduits) on the network equipment already running the plant.

The platform is organized around three capability themes.

KNOW EVERY OT ASSET, INCLUDING THE ONES NOBODY DOCUMENTED

Most plants and critical-infrastructure sites have 30 to 50 percent more connected devices than their inventory shows. The undocumented assets include legacy PLCs left in place after equipment changes, contractor-installed sensors, building controls, video surveillance, and shadow IoT. Attackers love these devices because they cannot run security agents and they often communicate freely across the plant network.

The Elisity IdentityGraph™ uses existing network equipment as a passive sensor and builds one real-time record per device. Every PLC, HMI, robot, sensor, HVAC controller, and engineering workstation is classified with business meaning - what production process it supports, what zone it belongs to, what its safety impact is, and what risk it carries - and assigned a single risk score.

Agentless discovery from passive port telemetry captured by the Elisity Virtual Edge Node on existing network equipment. No new hardware on the plant floor, no inline appliances, no traffic taps. This matters because most OT devices physically cannot accept security agents, and inserting new traffic-inspecting hardware on a production line is rarely acceptable to plant managers.
One identity record per device, drawn from industrial security tools (Claroty xDome, Dragos, Nozomi), corporate identity systems (Microsoft Active Directory and Entra ID), endpoint protection (CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender), and asset management systems already deployed. Every fact about a device is traceable to its source, which is what auditors and incident responders require.
Unified visibility across the protocols industrial equipment speaks, including MODBUS, OPC UA, DNP3, EtherNet/IP, and S7. One view replaces three or four parallel OT discovery tools, and the same view also covers the IT systems on the corporate side of the plant.
A single risk score fused across the OT security signals an organization already owns. The result: plant security, corporate security, and audit teams stop arguing about whose dashboard is right and work from the same number.

ENFORCE IEC 62443 ZONES AND CONDUITS WITHOUT NEW HARDWARE

IEC 62443 calls for an industrial environment to be divided into Zones (groups of assets with common security requirements) and Conduits (the controlled communication paths between zones). The standard is well understood by industrial security teams. The reason most manufacturers have not implemented it fully is the cost and disruption of the network re-architecture it has historically required: new firewalls between every zone, new VLAN designs, IP address changes, integration consultants, and multi-year programs.

The Elisity Microsegmentation Platform applies Zones and Conduits as a software construct on the network infrastructure already running the plant. Operators define zones by IEC 62443 security level, plant area, production function, or any other attribute. Communications between zones flow through Elisity-enforced conduits with the policy each zone pair requires.

The Elisity Dynamic Policy Engine adjusts policy the moment an OT asset's identity or risk changes. If an engineering laptop suddenly shows signs of compromise, its access into the production zone is restricted automatically, while legitimate plant operations continue uninterrupted.
Simulate-first workflow: see exactly which communications between PLCs, HMIs, and engineering systems a new policy will block before a single packet is stopped. Plant managers review the impact before activation. If anything is wrong after enforcement, one click rolls it back. This single capability is why Elisity microsegmentation programs succeed in environments where every prior attempt failed - fear of breaking the production line is removed.
Elisity Intelligence uses machine learning to recommend Zone and Conduit policies, with confidence scores and configurable approval thresholds. The platform is agentic, not autonomous, so plant and security teams stay in control of what gets enforced.
Compliance requirements drive policy directly. IEC 62443 Security Levels, the European NIS2 directive for critical infrastructure, NIST 800-82 for industrial control systems, TSA pipeline security directives, and customer-specific safety standards all map to first-class attributes in the platform. Audit evidence lives inside the product instead of in a spreadsheet.
Policies authored once in the Elisity Cloud Control Center publish automatically to existing firewalls (Palo Alto Networks), industrial security tools (Claroty), and corporate security infrastructure. Existing investments keep working; nothing has to be ripped out.

DEPLOY ACROSS EVERY PLANT WITHOUT TOUCHING THE LINE

The deployment model is where most OT segmentation programs have failed. Production lines have rare and narrow change windows. Replacing equipment, re-assigning IP addresses on legacy devices, or installing agents on PLCs is unacceptable to plant managers. Most legacy approaches require all three. Industry research shows roughly 60% of legacy microsegmentation programs stall before reaching production.

The Elisity Microsegmentation Platform deploys on the network infrastructure plants already operate, including ruggedized industrial switches from Cisco, Juniper, Arista, HPE Aruba, and Hirschmann.

First enforced policy in under two weeks from a cold start. No PLC re-engineering. No new appliances on the line. No production downtime.
The Elisity Virtual Edge runs as a virtual machine or container in the corporate or plant data center and synchronizes policy to the Elisity Virtual Edge Node, which enforces it on the existing network equipment. The plant floor never sees a security maintenance window.
A discovery-only mode lets operators turn on visibility immediately and defer enforcement until the next planned change window. Plants get full asset inventory and traffic understanding before any policy is activated.
Three-click policy deployment and one-click audit. Built for the plant network engineer and the security operator already on staff, not a microsegmentation specialist team that would need to be hired.
The Elisity Cloud Control Center is a cloud-delivered management console with audit-ready reports for IEC 62443, NIS2, and SOX. Distributed plants and critical-infrastructure sites are managed from one place.

WHAT THIS LOOKS LIKE IN PRACTICE

GSK (pharmaceutical manufacturing, EMEA): 187 active sites and active policies protect research labs, manufacturing plants, and distribution facilities across one of the world's largest pharmaceutical estates. The European footprint was secured in under four months. GSK won a CSO Award in 2023 for the Elisity-enabled microsegmentation program.
Shaw Industries (flooring manufacturing, North America): 27 active sites and active policies protect plants and offices for one of the world's largest flooring manufacturers. Shaw selected Elisity specifically to move beyond agent-based approaches that did not scale across the manufacturing footprint and to consolidate IT and OT security under a single policy model.
Andelyn Biosciences (advanced biotech manufacturing): 2 active sites and active policies protect specialized gene-therapy manufacturing operations where production interruption directly affects life-saving therapies.

THIRD-PARTY VALIDATION

Gartner Cool Vendor in Cyber-Physical Systems Security, 2025.
Gartner Hype Cycle for Enterprise Networking, 2025.
Gartner Market Guide for Network Security Microsegmentation, 2025 (Representative Vendor).
Three consecutive years of customer CSO Award recognition for Elisity-enabled microsegmentation programs: GSK (2023), Main Line Health (2024), and MultiCare Health System (2026).

How we are different

For decades, securing operational technology has felt unsolvable. Plant managers cannot accept downtime. Production equipment cannot run security software. Industrial networks were never designed for segmentation, and the people who run them are measured on uptime and yield, not policy enforcement. Every previous attempt to extend modern security into OT - overlay networks, agent-based platforms, rip-and-replace firewall architectures - has either failed outright or settled for protecting the IT side of the plant while leaving the production floor exposed.

The Elisity Microsegmentation Platform was built specifically for this problem. Five things make it distinct in the industrial cybersecurity market.

1. THE PLANT'S EXISTING NETWORK BECOMES THE SECURITY LAYER

Every manufacturing site, refinery, water utility, and pharmaceutical facility already has a network. Elisity turns that existing network - including ruggedized industrial switches from Cisco, Juniper, Arista, HPE Aruba, and Hirschmann - into the place where security policy is enforced. No new appliances sit in the production traffic path. No software is installed on PLCs, HMIs, or robots. No re-cabling of the plant floor is required.

The result: an OT security control that has historically required capital projects and multi-year construction programs becomes one that delivers in weeks on infrastructure already on the plant balance sheet.

2. ONE POLICY MODEL FOR IT, OT, AND IOT

Industrial cybersecurity tools were built for one slice of the problem. OT monitoring platforms see industrial protocols but cannot enforce policy. IT firewalls protect zone boundaries but cannot reach the device level. Endpoint security agents do not run on PLCs, HMIs, or robotics at all. The result has been three or four parallel security programs that do not share a policy model.

Elisity unifies all of it. The corporate ERP system, the engineering workstation, the historian server, the robot on the line, the building HVAC controller, and the contractor laptop on the guest network all live under the same rules. This matters more every year as IT and OT environments converge under unified leadership and as plants connect to cloud services, remote vendor support, and corporate networks.

The result: organizations consolidate from three or four separate segmentation efforts to one platform, with consistent policy enforced everywhere instead of best-effort across silos.

3. IEC 62443 ZONES AND CONDUITS IMPLEMENTED IN SOFTWARE

The international standard for industrial cybersecurity, IEC 62443, calls for segmenting industrial environments into Zones (groups of assets with common security requirements) and Conduits (the controlled communication paths between zones). The framework is well understood by industrial security teams. Most manufacturers have not implemented it fully because the historical approach required new firewalls between every zone, IP address changes, VLAN redesigns, and multi-year construction projects on networks that cannot afford downtime.

Elisity applies Zones and Conduits as a software construct directly on the network equipment already running the plant. Operators define a zone by IEC 62443 security level, plant area, or production function. Communications between zones flow through Elisity-enforced conduits with the policy each pairing requires. New plants, acquisitions, and equipment changes inherit the model automatically.

The result: a standard most industrial operators have aspired to for a decade becomes operationally achievable in weeks, on existing equipment, with the team already on staff.

4. IDENTITY REPLACES IP ADDRESS AS THE CONTROL POINT

Traditional industrial segmentation tools key on IP addresses, VLAN tags, and physical network locations. The moment a robot moves to a different cell, a PLC is replaced, a plant is acquired, or a contractor laptop joins the network, the policy breaks and someone has to rebuild it. In OT environments, where equipment operates for decades but moves under M&A and modernization, that brittleness has historically meant constant rework or rules so permissive they protect nothing.

Elisity bases policy on who or what a device is - its identity, role, production function, owner, and risk score - not where it sits on the network. When a device moves, the policy moves with it. When a new plant is acquired, its assets inherit the corporate policy automatically based on their identity attributes.

The result: policies stay correct without constant rework, and the platform contains a threat in real time instead of being one step behind a changing plant.

5. SIMULATE BEFORE ENFORCING - SO PLANT MANAGERS WILL SAY YES

The single biggest reason OT segmentation programs have stalled across the industry is the fear that a wrong rule will stop the line. Plant managers will not approve a security project that risks production yield, and they have decades of experience telling them that "trust me, it will work" usually does not. Elisity removes the fear by showing operators exactly which device-to-device communications a new policy will block before any traffic is actually stopped. The plant team reviews the impact, adjusts, and only then activates. If anything is wrong after enforcement, one click rolls it back.

The result: the security team and the plant team see the same evidence before any policy is active. Approvals that used to take quarters take days.