When a person comes home, he or she probably wants to know fairly quickly if anyone else is inside and whether they’re friend or foe. The same is true for chief information officers who constantly ask: “What’s on my network?”

As the number of “internet of things” devices connected to a network rises exponentially, so does the security threat. And CIOs are turning from software installed on specific devices or agent-driven measures to an agentless approach that leverages automation and predictive models powered by the network itself.

“CIOs now need to allow everything to connect and to make sense of this growing number of devices,” said Michael DeCesare (pictured), chief executive officer and president of Forescout Techologies Inc. “The agentless approach of allowing devices to connect to the network and then using the network to figure out what’s on it makes us a relevant and big player in the world of IoT and operational technology.”

DeCesare spoke with Jeff Frick, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the RSA Conference in San Francisco. They discussed his company’s focus on network visibility in the enterprise and growing interest in the operational technology market. (* Disclosure below.)

Tools for OT market

Forescout’s model is built on device visibility and control. The firm realized 10 years ago that an agentless approach was going to become especially relevant as more IoT-connected devices came into the market, according to DeCesare.

The outcome was a need for new tools to drive operational technology, or OT, and deal with a rising threat because the cybersecurity stakes had grown significantly greater.

“Why is OT so hot right now?” DeCesare asked. “Because it’s one thing to have your employees’ laptops compromised with something you don’t want to be on there. It’s a very different thing when you bring down a shipping line when a company can’t ship their product.”

Last month, Forescout announced the industry’s first unified device and visibility control platform engineered for both the OT and IT worlds. “We just see such a large market in helping answer the question of what’s on my network,” DeCesare said. “That’s our focus, and we want to do it across the extended enterprise at scale.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the RSA Conference. (* Disclosure: Forescout Technologies Inc. sponsors theCUBE’s coverage of the RSA Conference. Neither Forescout nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE