In today’s hybrid working environment and economy, the need for factory automation, higher production output, and an agile staff for OT environments is greater than ever. Concurrently, factories are faced with more debilitating cyberattacks that can cause financial and human loss. Zscaler and Siemens have recognized that for factory modernization and digitalization to occur, new security approaches, like Zero Trust access, will be added to traditional defense-in-depth strategies. Factories layering in Zero Trust access capabilities can now reduce their risk while using remote staff, or connecting to the internet and to the cloud, enabling them to take greater advantage of technology innovation that speeds factory output.

With the extension of Zscaler Private Access™ for OT, factory staff, contractors and third-party workers can remotely access factory systems securely to perform maintenance, monitoring and other tasks.

“The Zero Trust principles are incredibly relevant to smart factory initiatives,” said Herbert Wegmann, General Manager “Digital Connectivity and Power” at Siemens Digital Industries. “Operators are embracing digitalization to bring more automation and intelligence to their production. But it also brings a new dimension of connectivity between shopfloors and the internet.”

“I am thrilled that Siemens’ and Zscaler’s joint customers now have an integrated, highly secure approach to obtain and deploy Zscaler Private Access for OT environments directly from Siemens,” said Jay Chaudhry, CEO, Chairman, and founder at Zscaler. “Customers will be able to digitalize their factories faster by adding a Zero Trust access layer to their OT infrastructure. Our product and go-to-market collaboration will help ensure that industrial customers can improve factory uptime through reduced risk to remote worker access, while at the same time protecting themselves from the influx in cyberthreats facing them today.”

Key advantages of the Zscaler and Siemens secure OT remote access solution include: