When the platform identifies an unknown or unclassified device, it can move it to the appropriate VLAN at the switch level without manual intervention. “We can identify those devices and take appropriate action,” Foster said. “The underlying platform can move those devices to different VLANs on behalf of the user.”
In OT environments where agents cannot be installed on controllers and PLCs, the platform uses agentless methods: header scraping, active probes, remote execution scripts and a secure connect proxy. The platform consolidates over 30 agentless discovery methods.
“For non-agentable devices or ones that you can’t remote access, like OT, we can learn a lot from header scraping, from active probes, where we go and assess and query that device, get its vendor, make, model,” Foster said.
AI and the road ahead
Like every other IT vendor, Forescout has an AI strategy.
Forescout’s agentic AI dashboard, Pistaro AI, was introduced several weeks before this announcement. The segmentation data from the 4D Platform feeds directly into Pistaro AI, alongside asset, risk and threat data. Because all four platform functions share a single data layer, the AI can correlate segmentation state with device risk in real time.
The result is that the dashboard can flag segmentation issues proactively. “It may be saying, Hey, we’ve noticed some new segments that shouldn’t be talking to each other. You should go take a look at this,” Foster said.
There is still more to do, according to Foster, who noted that the current release is the first step in connecting AI and segmentation in the 4D Platform. “On the segmentation side, there’s a lot that we can do with the convergence of risk and AI and segmentation that hasn’t been explored yet,” Foster said.
