Colgate-Palmolive’s OT security posture needed to mature to keep pace with its IT security strategy

Colgate-Palmolive has been supplying hundreds of millions of consumers all over the world with personal care, household, healthcare, and veterinary products. Since its founding in 1806, the company has grown to include more than 60 locations in the U.S. and 280 locations in over 70 countries overseas.

While Colgate-Palmolive has a large, seasoned security team overseeing the IT infrastructure, the operational technology (OT) security team is evolving and growing. At the helm are Information Security Engineers Rafia Noor and Shem Stephens. Both are deeply involved in strategic OT initiatives and operationalization of solutions and processes at the organization’s more than 40 manufacturing plants.

Armis from ServiceNow demonstrates immediate value

Beyond protection of customer, employee, and proprietary data—a top priority for the company as a whole—the OT security team has been focusing on improving visibility into assets and better securing the OT network. After a successful proof-of-value (PoV), the OT security team deployed Armis from ServiceNow to gain control across all connected devices and cyber assets—monitoring and protecting more than half a million devices across its manufacturing locations. Initial deployment was swift and problem-free.

Noor attests to the big boost in visibility across the OT network that Armis delivers, “Armis provides a broad-sweep view of the devices in that environment, enabling us to visually comprehend what devices we have.”

Another important value Armis has brought to the table is the ability to set up and enforce policies. Colgate-Palmolive’s OT security team uses many built-in policies, as well as creating their own custom policies that they map to cyberthreats and risks they are seeing in OT in order to enhance their security practices and better detect adversaries.

The OT security team also appreciates the close business relationship they have cultivated with ServiceNow Armis leadership. “When something happens, or they come up with new features, we are able to do some testing and offer our feedback, which has been incorporated into new releases. This has created a solid partnership and that’s been very important in helping us expand our uses for the product,” notes Stephens.

An example of this is the way the company uses the vulnerability management system (VMS) module in Armis. Noor has been working closely with the VMS team to provide input on additional features that would enhance the product and how it’s used.

“It gives me a lot of hope and encouragement to see them implementing our suggestions, and we’re getting excited about testing them out in the near future,” she explains.

The OT security team detects the unprotected with automatic threat detection and response

When Stephens first started in his OT security role, Armis encountered several devices the team was not aware of. As Noor and Stephens point out, the manufacturing plants are always adding new technologies, so they have made it a practice to spot check the OT network with Armis for associated security vulnerabilities.

“From an overall security perspective, visibility into the manufacturing area was a big thing for us. We needed a tool to see what our plants are doing in order to better support them in terms of their security posture—and Armis fit the bill perfectly,” explains Stephens.

Armis stands apart from the rest with integration and security policies that map to the latest threats and risks

Noor and Stephens agree that Armis is unique in that it provides visibility into both IT and OT.

“In my experience, this is where these tools really stand out,” says Noor. “It provides the complete picture. Also, the cloud infrastructure and ease of management is another huge benefit.”

Armis’s ability to integrate with existing third-party IT and security tools makes it a wise investment for Colgate-Palmolive. These integrations provide a richer security data set. Now there’s no need to look at each point solution and aggregate that information manually.

“When we look at the OT environment, we don’t have to pivot to those tools. The Armis dashboard brings in the data from these products and enables us to view it through a single pane of glass, which minimizes our need to look at different interfaces. It’s a great feature, and something Armis does really well,” remarks Noor.

Innovative use cases for Armis to bring detailed insights into the new technologies introduced to the manufacturing environment

In keeping with its adherence to best practices and using the best available technologies, Colgate-Palmolive relies on Armis to provide the team with broader visibility, insights into gaps, and the ability to fine-tune policy in alignment with current cyber threats and risks.

The OT security team also uses Armis to facilitate network segmentation. Armis discovers, profiles, and classifies devices in the network and automatically enforces policy to ensure that devices are connected appropriately.

Apart from the security team, other groups at Colgate-Palmolive are using Armis to help them do their jobs more effectively and efficiently.

“Our auditing team uses Armis to look into areas of opportunity at our plants. And systems engineers use Armis to see when a programmable logic controller (PLC) was last changed out. They have that information at their fingertips now. As our leadership continues to collaborate with ServiceNow leadership, we can create these unique use cases that provide tremendous benefits for specific teams or individuals,” says Stephens.