A major Food & Beverage manufacturer operating across North America aimed to modernize its approach to industrial cybersecurity and operational visibility. With growing complexity across its facilities and limited insight into its operational technology (OT) environments, the company partnered with Armexa to implement a scalable, cloud-based cybersecurity solution. The initiative focused on improving asset visibility, enabling actionable anomaly detection, and integrating with enterprise tools—all while controlling infrastructure and licensing costs. Through a structured design and deployment process, the organization significantly advanced its OT cybersecurity posture and operational resilience.
Challenge
There was no standardized, enterprise-wide approach to identifying and managing OT assets, leading to fragmented oversight and inconsistent data. The company needed a solution capable of detecting and tracking industrial assets while integrating seamlessly with existing IT infrastructure, including the enterprise configuration management database (CMDB), antivirus tools, and monitoring platforms. Additionally, employees across different functions required tailored access to asset data, communication flows, and risk indicators to support their specific responsibilities.
Solution
To address these needs, a reference architecture was established to guide deployments of a cloud-native industrial cybersecurity solution tailored to the organization’s North American footprint. This was accomplished across diverse environments, prioritizing high visibility and low operational overhead. Sensors and software agents were strategically placed throughout critical industrial networks, especially in areas like the newly developed OT demilitarized zone (DMZ), to monitor traffic flows and detect abnormal behavior.
Rather than overwhelming teams with irrelevant information, the platform was carefully tuned to suppress false positives and highlight only actionable anomalies. Customized dashboards and reporting interfaces were developed to align with the workflows of various employee roles, ensuring that all users could access relevant insights efficiently. To promote long-term success, comprehensive training sessions and documentation were delivered, enabling the internal team to manage and evolve the solution independently.
Approach
The project followed a phased approach beginning with the previously mentioned architectural design. A high-level framework was created to serve as a foundation for more detailed, site-specific deployment plans. Once the architecture was in place, the deployment team installed monitoring components at strategic locations and configured them to feed data into the centralized cybersecurity platform. The tuning phase followed, during which the system was calibrated to reduce noise and focus on high-value alerts. Dashboards and reports were customized based on user needs, and a final phase focused on training personnel and delivering thorough documentation to ensure long-term sustainability.
Benefits
The implementation delivered both immediate and lasting benefits to the organization. Real-time visibility into industrial assets and network traffic significantly improved the company’s ability to manage cybersecurity risk. The reduction of false alarms enabled teams to focus on genuine threats and act more decisively. Integration with existing IT support teams streamlined processes and eliminated operational silos. The cloud-native architecture reduced the need for on-premises hardware and helped control licensing costs. Most importantly, internal teams were empowered to maintain and adapt the system over time, ensuring that the investment would continue to deliver value well into the future.
