Partnership for cybersecurity water, electric, transportation, and oil & gas sectors

Partnership will leverage comprehensive, real-time data to unify cyber security, compliance and change management activities

Telvent GIT has partnered with Industrial Defender to expand its cybersecurity capabilities within Telvent's key utility and critical infrastructure solutions. 

Brian Ahern
President & CEO,
Industrial Defender

Industrial Defender's flagship product, Automation Systems Manager (ASM), will leverage the data collected and analysed by Telvent technologies to provide a single, unified view that allows critical infrastructure sectors to better monitor, manage and protect their control systems. The integration of the two solutions will help to improve the speed of decision making and problem detection, while maximizing uptime and improving maintenance planning.

Telvent's partnership with Industrial Defender will allow customers to improve operational effectiveness. Specifically, operators now will have the ability to determine changes to the system, who made them and why. ASM automatically detects new devices connecting to the network, allowing for faster decision-making as to whether a change is planned or potentially malicious. Furthermore, ASM generates reports to meet regulatory requirements, such as NERC CIP, eliminating the need for additional staffing resources. The platform is compatible across multiple vendor systems, including legacy systems, providing a flexible, adaptable tool to meet operational needs. Telvent's highly-secure data and distribution management solutions will be certified and fully integrated with Industrial Defender's offering.

According to Telvent Chairman and CEO, Ignacio Gonzalez, "Through this partnership, our customers will gain a fully customisable solution of operational and cybersecurity capabilities. Customers will be able to rely on the most efficient and comprehensive solution on the market to help address the issues around heterogeneous networks, interconnectivity, field devices and regulations."

"Industrial Defender is proud to have been selected by Telvent to provide innovative solutions for security, compliance and change management to their customers and prospects," said Brian Ahern, CEO of Industrial Defender. "With ever-increasing threats against critical infrastructure and operational technologies, an increasingly changing regulatory environment, and anticipated exponential growth in intelligent field devices, our combined strengths will give Telvent's customers the advanced technologies and expertise they need to improve their operational effectiveness quickly, safely and securely."

Specifically, operators now will have the ability to accurately identify changes that have been made to the system, who made the changes, and why they were made. ASM automatically detects new devices connecting to the network; allowing for faster decision making as to whether a change is planned and properly authorized, or potentially malicious. Furthermore, ASM generates reports to meet regulatory requirements, such as NERC CIP, eliminating the need for additional staffing resources. The platform is compatible across multiple vendor systems, including legacy systems, providing a flexible, adaptable tool to meet operational needs. Telvent's highly-secure data and distribution management solutions will be certified and fully integrated with Industrial Defender's ASM solution.

The new solution is especially suited for Telvent customers that operate in the infrastructure sectors, such as water, electric, transportation, and oil & gas. The single view of real-time data on the network combined with the enhanced security detection capabilities provides a solution unique to the market and critical for a 21st century enterprise.

Licensing agreement aids security in automation systems

Automation systems owners benefit from Industrial Defender's unique expertise in developing technology for automation systems

Industrial Defender has announced a technology licensing agreement with CoreTrace Corporation. Specifically, Industrial Defender gains exclusive rights to deliver its CoreTrace Bouncer 6-based host intrusion prevention system (HIPS) to power, oil & gas, chemical and water markets worldwide, and to further develop the technology for these markets.


Customers will benefit from Industrial Defender's ability to further develop the product as a core component of its security and compliance management solutions portfolio. Industrial Defender's tight focus on automation systems means that future HIPS capabilities will be engineered in a manner that meets these organizations' unique technology requirements.

Brian Ahern

"Automation systems require security solutions that provide thorough protections against sophisticated attacks, including zero-day threats. At the same time, these systems have distinct requirements that many IT-centric security technologies, including anti-virus, fail to support," said Brian Ahern, president and CEO at Industrial Defender. "This agreement provides our customers and partners, including ABB, GE Energy, Itron and Elster Solutions, with access to HIPS technology tailored specifically for industrial automation markets."

For over a year, Industrial Defender has delivered HIPS as part of its integrated technology solutions portfolio and built tight integrations with its security event management technology. This agreement enables Industrial Defender to more comprehensively integrate HIPS technology with the company's suite of security and compliance management solutions, including automation system agents.

"Delivering security technology to industrial markets requires unique domain expertise along with deep technology experience. Industrial Defender clearly sits at the cross-section of these requirements," said Toney Jennings, president and CEO of CoreTrace. "Through this agreement, Industrial Defender will strengthen its position as the leading provider of integrated security and compliance solutions to automation systems owners worldwide."

Industrial Defender HIPS is whitelisting-based technology which enforces a limited "whitelist" of approved applications on each host system. By allowing only approved applications to execute, HIPS blocks all unauthorized applications. HIPS goes beyond "blacklist" technology by protecting against unknown and sophisticated attacks (e.g., rootkits, memory exploits and zero-day threats)

Increased Security Infrastructure for the Smart Grid

Advanced security and compliance tools enable utility deployment of integrated metering, communications and distribution automation solutions with confidence

Elster  and Industrial Defender has announced a technology partnership for cyber security and compliance with Elster's EnergyAxis® advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) Smart Grid solution. This announcement was made in San Diego at the DistribuTECH Conference and Exhibition, a leading annual Smart Grid and transmission-and-distribution event.

Industrial Defender's capabilities add to the robust security already embedded in EnergyAxis 7.5. Enhancements include advanced security intrusion detection and prevention at the end-point, server, perimeter and network levels, and high-availability centralized applications for monitoring, analysis, records management and compliance reporting.

The integration comprises the entire EnergyAxis solution. It also includes meters, networking devices, meter data management (MDM) servers, distribution automation (DA) servers, workstations and other devices. While EnergyAxis 7.5 already has secure technologies, including individual key management, the added Industrial Defender capabilities now support comprehensive situational awareness and security process automation across an entire AMI and DA infrastructure.

The partnership integrates security technologies into EnergyAxis, and creates a focused sales and service solution offering from Elster. This combination offers utilities a complete and accountable single source for reliable and compliant intelligent metering and distribution automation requirements.

"Cyber security is complex and multifaceted. By building individual key management and other security features into EnergyAxis 7.5, and integrating the enhanced applications offered by Industrial Defender, Elster continues to lead the way in creating secure, reliable infrastructure and proven Smart Grid solutions," said David Hart, Ph.D., senior vice president of systems and products at Elster Solutions.

"With Industrial Defender, we have found a partner that brings an extremely broad armament of security tools together on an integrated, utility-centric and utility-friendly basis," Hart added.

"The level of understanding and concern regarding threats to critical infrastructure and intelligent utility systems has increased among utility planners, suppliers, standards groups and regulators," said Brian Ahern, CEO of Industrial Defender. "By stepping up to create an integrated solution that incorporates comprehensive security and compliance capabilities, Elster is helping utilities get past the complexity and challenges of technology integration and move forward to take advantage of new business opportunities presented by the Smart Grid."

Cyber protection

Industrial Defender has introduced its Host Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS), an application whitelisting-based security solution that prevents malware attacks and non-trusted software modifications on control system servers and end-point devices. Industrial Defender’s HIPS is specifically designed for industrial control system environments where it is critical to avoid the high overhead of software scanning operations common with traditional anti-virus technologies, as well as the administrative overhead of frequent software and anti-virus signature patch updates.

"Many system administrators consider their mission-critical automation systems relatively secure, having deployed firewalls as well as changed the default system passwords," said Ryan Elbert, P.E., Engineering Manager at Black and Veatch, the consultancy firm. "In reality, sophisticated and persistent threats will eventually penetrate firewalls, and actions of employees and/or contractors almost inevitably introduce malware and unauthorized software to automation systems. Application whitelisting solutions like Industrial Defender’s HIPS provide a highly effective defense against such threats, especially in critical and legacy automation system environments."

As a whitelisting-based solution, the Host Intrusion Prevention System permits only a predetermined list of authorized applications to launch on each automation system computer. By ensuring that only approved, trusted applications can execute, HIPS automatically blocks all unauthorized applications, including unknown malware and rogue applications installed by users.

"HIPS is based on patented, award-winning application whitelisting technology from CoreTrace® that is tightly integrated and managed within Industrial Defender’s suite of Defense-in-Depth™ and compliance automation products, and supported with our professional services including host scrubbing, product deployment, whitelist initialization, and periodic system audits and refreshes," said Walt Sikora, Industrial Defender’s VP of Security Solutions. "The integration of HIPS into a complete automation security management solution assures safe, secure system implementations while minimizing the long-term cost of ownership."