embecta Embraces Zero Trust, Enabling the Manufacturer to Secure App Delivery, AI, and OT Globally

The company’s operational technology (OT) environment poses its own security challenges. embecta manufactures insulin delivery products at facilities in the U.S., Ireland, and China. Howard says, “Our manufacturing teams want more and more data off their equipment, and many machines have third-party remote-support requirements. We needed to design a secure architecture which allowed this. We also wanted to ensure that a potential problem in one line would not impact other lines, so we follow strict OT to OT and OT to enterprise network separation rules.”

To protect both cloud apps, enterprise network and OT systems, embecta chose to deploy Netskope One Private Access as, essentially, its application delivery stack.

The Netskope platform has proven highly reliable for embecta. “We’ve never had a Netskope outage,” Estcourt says. “We have dual internet connections into most of our sites, and everything works perfectly.”

Even in China, the transition to Netskope NewEdge China Elite improved performance and reliability for business-critical applications. “When we implemented Netskope, our user base in China saw performance increases,” Estcourt explains. “Previously, users there complained frequently about network performance, but we haven’t heard any complaints since we switched.”

Historically, Estcourt says, the manufacturing facility in China required multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) connections because of concerns about compliance and internet gateways. “With Netskope, we are fully compliant with Chinese law because our internet breakouts remain in China.”

Netskope has also helped with embecta’s testing of genAI platforms such as ChatGPT. “Early on, we worried about people sharing inappropriate information without understanding how genAI works,” Estcourt says. “Netskope helped us to safely roll out these systems with effective controls and user coaching in place.”

“I’m a huge fan of Netskope,” Estcourt concludes. “Private Access doesn’t let anything talk to anything else unless it absolutely needs to. We provide access into a segment by going to a publisher, which provides granular control and reporting around exactly who accesses each application. Netskope is a great option for any manufacturing organization that wants to get to the next level of separating OT from enterprise, while maintaining access needed to support the business.”