Zero-infrastructure cybersecurity solution to protect industrial enterprises

INDUSTRIAL CYBERSECURITY company, Claroty, has released Claroty Edge, a new, patent-pending addition to The Claroty Platform that the firm says delivers 100 percent visibility into industrial networks in minutes without requiring network changes, utilising sensors, or having any physical footprint.

Combined with enhancements to its Continuous Threat Detection (CTD) solution – including CTD.Live, a SaaS-based deployment option, and new features for scalable deployments – Claroty says it now offers a complete portfolio of solutions that meet enterprises wherever they are on their industrial cybersecurity journey.

“Network security in operational technology (OT) and industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) environments means security products that can speak and understand the many proprietary industrial protocols, and provide both security operations center staff with increased visibility of the full operations and OT personnel with actionable information,” said Romain Fouchereau, research manager, European Security at IDC. “The ability to perform comprehensive network monitoring without needing to invest in extra sensors or other supporting components can help maintain system resiliency, especially in large, highly distributed organisations.”

As there’s no such thing as a one-size-fitsall industrial network, organisations require cybersecurity solutions that can evolve with their objectives, without burdening their infrastructure or personnel with unnecessary hardware, complex configurations, lengthy deployments, or steep learning curves. Claroty says the new and enhanced platform achieves this by giving customers faster, easier, more-flexible paths to achieve the industrial cybersecurity objectives that are most important to them.

“The recent cyber incidents with Colonial Pipeline and the Oldsmar, Florida water supply have underscored the need for asset owners and operators to mature their cybersecurity programs and make ‘eyes wide open’ decisions about the risks to their critical and vulnerable assets,” said Grant Geyer, chief product officer of Claroty. “Cyber risks to industrial control systems have consequences not only for the organisation, but also for public safety and the global supply chain, so every industrial enterprise has an obligation to start their cybersecurity journey. With Claroty’s enhanced platform, organisations can take advantage of the capabilities that are right for their needs today, and can evolve as the threat landscape changes and their cybersecurity programs mature.”

KEY FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS

With these new additions and enhancements, says the developer, The Claroty Platform has evolved to reveal, detect, protect, and connect any deployment structure, at any scale, in rapid time:

Claroty Edge is the industry’s first zero-infrastructure industrial cybersecurity solution, functioning as a highly flexible edge- data collector to deliver 100 per sent visibility in minutes, with a simple, easy set-up and absolutely no network footprint, says Claroty. It equips customers to discover a complete OT, IoT, and IIoT global asset inventory, as well as identify and manage the vulnerabilities and risks affecting those assets.

Claroty Edge is an ‘optimal’ entry-point for those who are just beginning their industrial cybersecurity journey, as well as an exemplary scalable solution for those expanding their existing coverage to air-gapped, remote, smaller, or differently prioritised sites.

Beyond this, customers can leverage it to conduct audit requests and report compliance for industrial networks, M& A due diligence on target third-party environments, and faster and more effective incident response.

CTD.Live is a SaaS-based deployment option for enterprises embracing the cloud as a core component of their industrial cybersecurity strategy. It is uniquely suited to support robust digital transformation initiatives because it is fast, scalable, and ensures CTD’s visibility and threat detection capabilities are always up to date. CTD.Live also reduces total cost of ownership by eliminating certain hardware requirements and extending inventory, risk and vulnerability, and monitoring coverage to newly added assets automatically as customer networks expand.

CTD version 4.3 is promised to provide greater flexibility in how critical asset, alert, and risk data can be accessed, managed, and manipulated, both directly within CTD and via integrations with third- party SIEM providers. It includes new options for segmentation via Virtual Zones, enabling customers to further customise and fine-tune their segmentation and alerting policies for stronger, more accurate detection of risky communications and other indicators of malicious activity.

Secure Remote Access (SRA): The scalability of all of these capabilities increases by combining CTD.Live with Claroty’s SRA solution, which provides internal and third- party personnel with frictionless, reliable, and highly secure access to industrial networks. Customers can also use Claroty Edge to blueprint and optimise SRA deployments, thereby reducing the time and resources required for full implementation.

“We needed an OT tool that complements Claroty CTD’s real-time monitoring to reveal the unreachable blind spots in Pfizer’s main manufacturing environments. With Claroty Edge, we attained this faster than ever imagined,” said Jim LaBonty, head of global automation engineering at Pfizer. “Its unique offering and approach deliver a complete, detailed inventory of all OT and IoT assets in both integrated and standalone networks, in a matter of minutes and with a few clicks. This would have otherwise taken several weeks. Claroty Edge takes the heavy lif ting out of managing the plethora of OT assets in production and empowers us to better secure our production environments.”

Claroty Edge is generally available now, while CTD.Live and CTD 4.3 will be available this month.