Telefónica’s ElevenPaths and Fortinet expanded their collaboration to offer managed security services for industrial sector companies. With today’s deal, ElevenPaths’ will extend the Fortinet Security Fabric across industrial control systems and offer organizations managed security across their operational technology (OT), IT, and IoT environments.

The two companies have worked together for more than 15 years, and in June 2016 the Spain-based operator’s cybersecurity unit started using Fortinet’s Security Fabric platform in its managed services for IT environments. More recently, Telefónica launched a virtual firewall service based on Fortinet’s platform to protect SD-WAN deployments.

Fortinet first rolled out its Security Fabric in 2016. The platform integrates detection and response technologies from multiple vendors via a single console. Since then, the vendor has added capabilities including IoT device visibility and control and Fabric Connectors, which help automate security operations and policies through one-click integrations with more than 360 products and partners including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cisco, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure, and VMware. And, in fact, ElevenPaths is already one of these Fabric-Ready technology alliance partners.

Fortinet’s platform provides companies with visibility and management capabilities across IT and OT devices, which allows them to set up consistent security policies across both environments. This becomes increasingly important as companies roll out 5G networks, which will unleash billions of new connected devices that require security.

In addition to detecting and mitigating vulnerabilities across both IT and OT environments, Fortinet also provides secure remote address, which addresses both cybersecurity and physical safety challenges faced by the OT industry.

“Many of our clients are undergoing digital transformations where OT and IoT technologies play a leading role,” said Alberto Sempere, director of product and marketing at ElevenPaths, in a statement. “Although there are significant benefits to these technologies, they also introduce greater exposure to security risks that must be properly managed and addressed. Fortinet's technology is an integral part of our cybersecurity offerings and strategy to ensure we’re addressing our customers’ new and growing security risks.”