CyberX Technology Recognized as Innovative for Advanced Behavioral Analytics and Machine Learning Algorithms to Accurately Detect Industrial Cyber Risk
BOSTON, January 9, 2018 – CyberX, the IIoT, and industrial control system (ICS) security company, today announced that it was awarded a patent (U.S. Patent 10,015,188) by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for its innovative, ICS-aware risk analytics and machine learning technology.
As industrial and critical infrastructure organizations look to safeguard their IIoT and ICS networks from cyberattacks that can result in costly production downtime, catastrophic safety failures, and environmental incidents, they are looking for new ways to rapidly detect and respond to advanced zero-day threats that can easily bypass conventional perimeter and endpoint security solutions.
The CyberX patent covers unique methods and systems for learning ICS network behavior and accurately identifying anomalous activities. It relies on a new and innovative way of using finite-state machine (FSM) modeling techniques to analyze ICS environments and machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. CyberX is the only ICS security company to have been awarded a patent for its threat detection analytics, which are embedded in its industrial cybersecurity platform that has been commercially available since early 2015.
“CyberX was founded in 2013 with the mission of reducing ICS risk for industrial and critical infrastructure organizations,” said Omer Schneider, CEO, and co-founder of CyberX. “Our technology is now safeguarding production operations for some of the world’s largest and most complex organizations, across all industry sectors worldwide. This patent is further recognition that we’re delivering highly differentiated technology to support our customers’ business objectives.”
“Rising threats to IIoT and ICS environments demonstrate that threat actors such as nation-states and cybercriminals are not standing still in the cyber arms race,” said Nir Giller, CyberX CTO, EMEA GM, and co-founder. “We’re committed to hiring the best and brightest people to continue our groundbreaking innovation in this domain.”
CyberX was recently recognized by Gartner in a report titled “Competitive Landscape: Operational Technology Security.” In the report, Gartner predicts that Operational Technology (OT) security spending will grow at a CAGR of 45.7 percent through 2022, with the highest annual growth percentage occurring in 2019 and 2020. 1
How It Works
The patent covers analytics for detecting anomalous behavior in ICS networks incorporating specialized ICS protocols such as Modbus and DNP3 and specialized ICS devices such as Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) and Human Machine Interfaces (HMIs). The technology works by:
· Capturing all ICS network traffic and performing deep packet inspection (DPI) to analyze specific fields of ICS packet data that are unique to each ICS protocol.
· Modeling ICS network behavior as deterministic sequences of states and transitions.
· Generating real-time alerts whenever observed behavior deviates from the expected sequence of ICS network states, based on advanced machine learning and probabilistic algorithms.
· Identifying other types of anomalous conditions independent of baseline deviations, such as the use of packet structures and field values that violate ICS protocol specifications as defined by industrial automation vendors. These can indicate misuse of the ICS protocol to exploit particular device or network vulnerabilities.
· Identifying insider threats such as suspicious or unauthorized activities performed by authorized privileged users within the ICS network.
1 Gartner, “Competitive Landscape: Operational Technology Security,” by Ruggero Contu, 29 October 2018
About CyberX
CyberX delivers the only industrial cybersecurity platform built by blue-team cyber experts with a proven track record of defending critical national infrastructure. That difference is the foundation for the most widely deployed platform for continuously reducing ICS risk and preventing costly production outages, safety failures, and environmental incidents.
Notable CyberX customers include 2 of the top 5 US energy providers; a top 5 global pharmaceutical company; a top 5 US chemical company; and national electric and gas utilities across Europe and Asia-Pacific. Strategic partners include industry leaders such as Palo Alto Networks, IBM Security, Splunk, Optiv Security, McAfee, DXC Technologies, and Deutsche-Telekom/T-Systems. For more information visit CyberX-Labs.com or follow @CyberX_Labs.
