Case StudyNJ TRANSIT
Boosts Cybersecurity Efficiency and Effectiveness withForescout Platform Capabilities and Integrations

1 WEEK
to achieve core enterprisevisibility

HOURS

6,000

saved daily from automatedcompliance and remediation

unknown devices discovered

Overview

Industry
Government

Environment
16,000 wired and wireless devices
across 270 locations; 10,000
employees; campus, data center

Challenge•

Maintain and track compliance of alldevices on the network, including IoT•

Comply with PCI as a Level 1merchant•Control network access and protect
endpoints across 270 field sites

Security Solution••

Forescout platform•

Forescout eyeExtend for IBM®
BigFix®

•Forescout eyeExtend for McAfee®
ePO™

•
•

Forescout eyeExtend for Qualys® VMForescout eyeExtend for
Check Point® NGFWForescout eyeExtend Connect

NJ TRANSIT is a state-owned public transportation system that operates bus,
light rail and commuter rail services throughout the U.S. state of New Jersey
as well as into New York and Philadelphia. By using the Forescout platform fordevice visibility and control and integrating it with a range of security tools in theirenvironment, the NJ TRANSIT’s cybersecurity team did more than just meet theirvisibility and NAC objectives. They also dramatically improved the organization’s
overall security posture and realized significant time savings thanks to automateddevice compliance checks, reductions in remediation activity, easier audit
reporting, and other efficiency improvements.

Business Challenge“First and foremost, you need to know what you have [on your network] so you knowwhat is and isn’t protected.”—Bilal Khan, Chief Technology and Security Officer, NJ TRANSITNJ TRANSIT’s security team strives to provide customers with uninterrupted
service as well as protect the organization’s assets and customers’ personalinformation. “Knowing what is on the network is critical. But as devices haveproliferated over time—including many agentless IoT devices such as HVAC andwastewater management systems, payroll clocks, printers, and so on—knowing
what is on the network had become increasingly difficult,” says Lookman Fazal, NJ
TRANSITS chief information and digital officer. The potential for rogue devices at
any of the 270 field sites was a major concern as was keeping managed devices
compliant with both internal security standards and federal regulations. NJTRANSIT is classified as a PCI DSS Level 1 merchant and because it has a medicalunit and police force, it is also subject to HIPAA and CJIS regulations.

Use Cases

•
•
•
•
•

Device visibility
Network access control
Incident response
Device compliance
Regulatory compliance

Results•

Rapid time to value—one weekto achieve a high degree ofvisibility across the network•

60% more devices discovered on
network than expected•

Accurate, real-time asset
inventory system to replacecumbersome, incomplete
manual method•Hours saved daily due toreduced remediation andtroubleshooting•

Stronger security posture fromdramatically improved andautomated device compliance•

Network access control (NAC)
that allows only authorized
devices to connect, including
thousands of employees
working remotely•

Accurate, granular data toaccelerate remediation, incident
response and decision making“When we start enrichingdata from other tools
with accurate, real-timedata from Forescout, ourcybersecurity team is able to
make data-driven decisions
with confidence. It allows
me to sleep at night.”— Bilal Khan, Chief Technologyand Security Officer, NJ TRANSIT

Why Forescout?
“Beyond NAC, we were looking for a product that would give us reliable,comprehensive visibility that would show us what we did not know,” recalls John
Franciscone III, NJ TRANSIT’s director of cybersecurity. “When we watched our first
Forescout demo, we knew it was going to be a home run product for us…the way
it interacts with the network, providing accurate, real-time data and granular hostinspections that far and away surpass anything else out there.”

Business ImpactTime to Value in One Week, 60% More Devices Discovered than Expected
A 30-day Proof of Value (PoV) of the Forescout platform that morphed into fullproduction mode before the month ended validated the NJ TRANSIT security
team’s initial impressions. Within the first week of the PoV, NJ TRANSIT had
complete visibility across all but a small fraction of its infrastructure. In the past,creating an asset inventory was a very manual process highly dependent on anagent-based patch management tool. Using this process, the team had been awareof 10,000 devices scattered across NJ TRANSIT’s network. In addition to those
10,000 known devices, the Forescout platform discovered an additional 6,000devices. “Now our asset inventory comes directly from the Forescout dashboard,”says Franciscone. “Unlike before, it is easy to obtain and we can trust that it isaccurate.”

Transformed Security Posture Thanks to Integrations and Automation
The NJ TRANSIT security team also overhauled device compliance. The
Forescout platform continuously checks and reports on the status of Windows
configurations, antivirus and disk encryption for all managed devices on thenetwork. But that’s not all thanks to integration of the Forescout platform
with McAfee ePO. If the McAfee agent is installed on an endpoint but notcommunicating properly, the Forescout solution automatically informs the McAfee
ePO console, which then initiates a script to restart the system, and, if that does
not fix the problem, reloads the antivirus software. In addition, Forescout data fed
into NJ TRANSIT’s Qualys vulnerability management system enhances vulnerability
detection. The cybersecurity team is also integrating CrowdStrike endpoint
detection and response software with the Forescout platform via Forescout
eyeConnect to add a lot more context to accelerate incident response. “When westart enriching data from other tools with accurate, real-time data from Forescout,our cybersecurity team is able to make data-driven decisions with confidence. It
allows me to sleep at night,” says Bilal Khan, NJ TRANSIT’s chief technology andsecurity officer.

“Know-It-All NAC”
With COVID-19, many more NJ TRANSIT employees than usual are working from
home, connecting to the network via VPN. The Forescout platform checks all theirdevices and any others as they try to connect to the network, blocking access ifthey are not authorized and complaint. “Forescout is basically the bouncer thatdecides who gets in and who doesn’t,” explains Jonathan Cassidy, NJ TRANSIT’s
lead cybersecurity analyst. “Thanks to the Forescout-Check Point integration, you
don’t get past our firewall until Forescout lets you. We call it know-it-all NAC. It
ensures that every device and every IP address on our network has a purpose, that
we have no useless, unneeded, or risky devices connected.”

Operational Time Savings in Multiple Areas“Knowing what is on thenetwork is critical. But asdevices have proliferated
over time—including many
agentless IoT devices suchas HVAC and wastewater
management systems,
payroll clocks, printers, andso on—knowing what is on
the network had become
increasingly difficult,”— Lookman Fazal, Chief
Information and Digital Officer, NJ
TRANSIT

Besides dramatically improving security posture with full visibility, continuous device
posture assessment and NAC, the NJ TRANSIT security team has reaped significant
operational time savings from using the Forescout platform. For instance, they nowspend far less time on compliance reporting and internal and regulatory audits.
Creating a list of PCI assets now takes minutes as opposed to a day or two.
Pushing out patches and software updates is much faster and easier too.
But the most significant time savings is due to a huge reduction in remediation
activity, in part because the team integrated the Forescout platform with its IBM
BigFix endpoint management software. “In the past, something as simple asrestarting a device could take hours, but now it takes only seconds,” notes Cassidy.
“Most of the time, Forescout silently takes care of things for us. I spend hours lesstime each day on remediation and troubleshooting.”
Given the numerous benefits that NJ TRANSIT has reaped by implementing andintegrating the Forescout platform, Franciscone has become a huge fan. “TheForescout platform has proven its value repeatedly and there’s still so much more
we can do with it,” he says to peers. “Whether your team is large or small, doyourself a favor and check it out.”

Forescout Technologies, Inc.
190 W Tasman Dr.
San Jose, CA 95134 USAToll-Free (US) 1-866-377-8771
Tel (Intl) +1-408-213-3191
Support +1-708-237-6591

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