Nextnine and SecurityMatters today announced that the two companies have entered into an OEM partnership. As part of this cooperation, Nextnine has integrated the SilentDefense technology from SecurityMatters into its ICS Shield system.
Nextnine is positioning its ICS Shield system as an operational technology (OT) security management solution for connected industrial control system (ICS) environments. According to the company, ICS Shield enables industrial enterprises to implement connected operations, while minimizing security vulnerabilities.
“Manufacturers around the world are benefiting from connected operations. Smart manufacturers and smart factories are leveraging increased volumes of analytics for greater automation, better preventative maintenance and overall increased output,” explained Nextnine CEO, Shmulik Aran.
Aran cautioned that “connected operations along with its benefits also introduces a new set of cybersecurity vulnerabilities. These risks have attracted a lot of well-deserved headlines recently, although with the correct security mechanisms in place, an industrial enterprise can enjoy the benefits of merging their IT networks with their OT infrastructure.”
Aran described that Nextnine’s ICS Shield as giving a holistic approach for manufacturers and other industrial enterprises for minimizing the risks of connected operations and providing a framework to manage their security essentials. Examples of security essentials that the company recommends that industrial enterprises focus on include establishing secure remote access for multiple third parties, updating patches and antivirus signatures, compliance reporting or simply creating an inventory of operational assets.
According to the two companies, the integration of the SecurityMatter’s SilentDefense technology into ICS Shield adds continuous, state-of-the art network monitoring capabilities. This integration also adds augmented passive discovery and the detection of anomalies and inefficiencies. This technology improves the ability of ICS Shield to learn and validate network communication patterns and process operations with in-depth analysis of industrial protocols as well as identify rogue and malfunctioning devices, intrusions and attacks.
“Our OEM partnership with SecurityMatters widens the competencies of our ICS Shield solution. Through the integration of SecurityMatters’ SilentDefense technology, we can now passively build a comprehensive inventory and baseline picture of the ICS network, including the PLCs and quickly identify inefficiencies, anomalies traffic patterns and misuse or abuse of communication,” further explained Nextnine’s CEO.
“Our work with Nextnine allows asset owners, vendors and service providers to securely access assets and promptly remediate any potentially disruptive incidents once an anomaly has been detected by SilentDefense,” said Damiano Bolzoni, CEO of SecurityMatters. “With over 6,000 installations at plants around the world, Nextnine’s solution is clearly two and three steps ahead of the many new vendors that have recently entered the OT and industrial security space and the company has built over the years an impressive network of prominent MSSP, system integrator and automation vendor partners”.
