Today, every company in the industrial sector utilizes several automation platforms. Whether it’s a line or cell within a manufacturing facility, process plant equipment for an oil and gas field, or a refinery or pipeline, there’s virtually no scenario where the use of multiple control systems and many multiples of OT/IoT protocols doesn’t exist.
To make it easier for critical infrastructure and industrial operators to manage and secure these multi-platform OT/IoT environments, Nozomi Networks has formed strategic alliances with two additional major suppliers. These relationships complement and augment our existing partnerships.
We’re now collaborating with Honeywell and Yokogawa Europe to simplify and accelerate the delivery of asset discovery, threat detection, vulnerability assessment, operations monitoring and visibility for their customers. Similar to our relationships and interoperability with GE Power, Schneider Electric, and Siemens, these new partnerships extend deep and complete cybersecurity across the OT/IoT environments of Honeywell and Yokogawa clients.
Let’s take a look at how these new partnerships benefit asset owners.
Nozomi Networks Delivers Vendor-Neutral OT/IoT Defense in Depth
Our goal has always been to help protect control networks by providing multi-protocol visibility, asset identification, vulnerability analytics, and behavior-based analytics for multi-supplier OT/IoT environments.
The partnerships with Honeywell and Yokogawa Europe extend Nozomi Networks’ OT/IoT defense in depth capabilities to more critical infrastructure and industrial operators around the world. Regardless of which multi-platform controls their customers use, our solution helps them see what’s going on across their networks, and monitor and secure their mixed OT/IoT environment.
Nozomi Networks Included in Honeywell’s Comprehensive Vendor-Neutral Cybersecurity Portfolio
The partnership with Honeywell combines Nozomi Networks’ industry-leading OT and Internet of Things (IoT) security and visibility capabilities with the strengths of Honeywell Forge Cybersecurity software, professional consulting and managed security services.
“Our partnership with Nozomi Networks will enable us to provide customers with a one-stop shop for best-in-breed cybersecurity products and services. Our partnership delivers the industry’s most complete, vendor-neutral OT cybersecurity portfolio, strengthened by Honeywell global professional and managed security services.”
Jeff Zindel, Vice President and General Manager, Honeywell Connected Enterprise Cybersecurity
Nozomi Networks Incorporated in Yokogawa’s Cybersecurity Managed Services
Yokogawa Europe now offers Nozomi Networks’ advanced solutions for OT and IoT visibility, operations monitoring, and threat detection to customers as part of its Managed Services. Yokogawa will also provide standalone solutions from Nozomi Networks to customers who manage their security programs in-house.
“With Nozomi Networks, our customers have access to OT and IoT network monitoring and threat detection that is fully supported by Yokogawa’s Managed Services. Partnered with Nozomi, we are able to rapidly deliver deep OT and IoT and IT cybersecurity expertise, using battle-tested solutions that our customers are demanding.”
Hans Hennekam, Functional Director Yokogawa Europe
End-to-End Visibility Leads to Better OT/IoT Security
The first tranche of value that customers seek is asset identification. The Nozomi Networks Guardian product learns the environment, identifies assets, and gathers intelligence around those assets. This insight informs vulnerability analytics that identify items like CVEs and risk priority.
The second tranche of value involves network visibility. This is where Guardian gains an understanding of traffic patterns on OT controls and IoT communications from a network engineering perspective.
The third tranche of value centers around context and analytics that allow our solution to create a behavior-based model. Once Guardian establishes a solid baseline for all assets and network communications, it can then identify anomalies. Threat detection is based on both anomaly detection plus signature-based detection. For example, we use Yara rules and other types of indicators to identify known threat vectors.
Finally, Nozomi Networks’ visibility and threat detection capabilities easily scale from one site to thousands of sites.
OT/IoT Security Risks Are Still High
The need for increased security is crystal clear when you look at what manufacturers, industrial operators, and even commercial and government building managers are facing today. Threat actors are exploiting the expanded attack surface brought on by the increased use of IoT devices, as well as the work-from-home environment created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
A recent report from SonicWall found there were 34.11 million ransomware attacks detected this September.1 That’s 110 percent more than the same period last year, when 16.21 million attacks were recorded. Ransomware is just one example of the types of attacks continuing to mount for industries such as utilities and energy, manufacturing, high tech, engineering, and pharma and life sciences.
In the work from home era brought on by the pandemic, there is an increased need for network monitoring and asset monitoring to boost any company’s defense-in-depth strategy to secure users’ plants. Add to that the fundamental need to independently see what’s going on across the network.
The Need to Monitor and Identify IoT Devices Will Continue to Grow
Industrial network visibility, identifying assets and vulnerabilities, and monitoring to stay on top of existing and emerging threats is table stakes. Mixed OT/IoT environments make it even more challenging to identify and monitor all the devices and communications within the network.
No one vendor can single-handedly help industrial and critical infrastructure operators stay safe and secure, so alliances are key. With more threats to manage and devices to protect, the answer lies with integrated and interoperable solutions that strengthen security while keeping administration and management requirements low.
That’s exactly what these latest partnerships are aimed to do, and why we look forward to working with Honeywell, Yokogawa Europe and all our Global Strategic Alliances to help the critical infrastructure organizations that support everyday life thrive, now and in the future.
If you’d like to learn more about our partnerships with Honeywell or Yokogawa Europe, just let us know.
References
- Q3 Cyber Threat Intelligence Details a September to Remember, Sonicwall, October 28, 2020
