Cybersecurity company Forescout Technologies announced on Monday a new, agentless, cloud-native network segmentation solution purpose-built for hybrid IT, OT, IoT and IoMT enterprises to visualize and model zones from a single console. These new segmentation capabilities in the Forescout 4D Platform provide identity- and attribute-driven zone modeling for managed, unmanaged, and unagentable devices. With no network redesign or vendor lock-in, Forescout reduces onboarding from weeks to hours.
Segmentation is foundational to Universal Zero Trust Network Access (UZTNA), yet most organizations struggle to operationalize it. Traditional models force impossible tradeoffs: workload-only tools don’t cover OT and IoT environments, OT-centric platforms miss IT, and agent-based solutions can’t support unmanaged or agentless devices.
The Forescout 4D Platform takes a visibility-first approach starting with device identification, behavior, and risk assessment, then turns that context into an intuitive, matrix-driven view that helps teams confidently model device communication patterns before enforcing controls.
With over 30 agentless discovery methods consolidated into one platform, Forescout delivers complete device coverage, ensuring organizations can base decisions on the most complete and accurate asset context. This context-driven approach also supports compliance outcomes for mandates such as HIPAA and PCI DSS by enabling more granular, auditable access policies based on asset identity and behavior rather than static network constructs. Read the solution brief for more information.
“This evolution transforms segmentation from a static, IP-centric project into a continuous, device identity-driven practice that advances UZTNA,” said Paul Kao, chief product officer at Forescout. “By grounding decisions in a device’s identity, attributes, behavior, and risk instead of its network location, we eliminate the fragility of traditional segmentation approaches. Because our architecture starts with visibility and real communication patterns, organizations design smarter, enforce more confidently, and strengthen their UZTNA strategy from day one.”
The Forescout 4D Platform delivers stronger, more resilient segmentation by using identity- and attribute-based zone modeling to build policies that automatically adapt to device type, function, behavior, and risk, reducing outages and eliminating the fragility of IP-based configurations affected by DHCP churn, device mobility, and constant network change. It provides real-time visibility into east-west risk through matrix-driven visualization and an intuitive user experience that surfaces risky communication paths using clear heatmaps and ready-to-use zone templates.
Coverage is comprehensive and agentless across IT, OT, IoT, and IoMT environments, drawing on more than 30 discovery methods to help organizations confidently discover, classify, and understand device behavior without deploying agents, replacing infrastructure, or locking into a single vendor. The cloud-native architecture also enables rapid time to value, allowing organizations to onboard in hours rather than weeks through a plugin-free, API key-based setup that accelerates deployment and delivers immediate operational insight.
“Segmentation only works when it reflects how environments actually operate,” said Justin Foster, chief technology officer at Forescout. “By anchoring segmentation modeling to device identity and behavior, and delivering it natively in the cloud, the Forescout 4D Platform aligns with how teams design, validate, and govern segmentation at scale, which directly enables UZTNA and CTEM programs. The new capabilities establish the architectural foundation for simulation-first validation, violation-aware enforcement, and AI-driven policy baselines, so customers can see everything first, model with confidence, then enforce with precision and reduce lateral movement risk without disrupting the business.”
As organizations face rapid device growth and rising risk, the need for unified, continuous segmentation is urgent. IoT devices are projected to increase from 18.5 billion in 2024 to 39 billion by 2030, and Forescout Research – Vedere Labs’ 2026 Riskiest Connected Devices Report reveals the rate of change is accelerating sharply, with 75% of the riskiest devices new to the rankings in just the last two years.
Forescout alleviates these pressures by containing ransomware blast radius, eliminating blind spots across IT, OT, IoMT and IoT, streamlining segmentation modeling and design, and giving SOC teams clear east-west visibility for faster investigation. The result is safer operations, stronger compliance, and measurable risk reduction.
