Industrial Defender has released announced its flagship software product purpose-built for operators of automation systems, including NERC CIP-affected power utilities.
Industrial Defender Automation Systems Manager (ASM) integrates asset management, event management, configuration change management, policy compliance, endpoint security, and reporting into one powerful solution.
ASM improves operational effectiveness and enhances security by reducing the manual tasks associated with change management and compliance activities while significantly diminishing security vulnerabilities.
Implementing the ASM solution enables customers to lower the risk of unplanned outages and reduce both operational costs and complexity.
"Industrial Defenders customers have been clear about their need for a platform-agnostic, unified view of their increasingly complex environments," said Brian Ahern, CEO of Industrial Defender.
"Our new ASM solution set not only brings Industrial Defender’s wide range of applications for security and compliance solutions together in a common platform, it now extends to encompass effective change management.
"This enables current and future customers to address workflow, cost efficiency and sustainable processes with flexibility and simplicity to meet their business objectives."
"Our research shows that as organizations expand their automation systems and upgrade them with new technologies, overlaps emerge in areas such as security and compliance," said Pike Research Senior Analyst Bob Lockhart.
"Solutions that can successfully integrate presently separate and duplicative functions can deliver a range of benefits, including reduced operating expenses, lower risk, greater efficiency and reduced complexity."
ASM is available in three software editions. These align to the company’s integrated solution offerings, Monitor, Manage and Protect, which incorporate Industrial Defender’s infrastructure, and professional service offerings.
The expanded solutions now include:
Monitor — Provides event data collection from disparate industrial endpoints and includes centralised event logging, correlation and archiving. It provides consolidation of log data for analysis and forensics, a customisable dashboard, and offers fast, agent-less deployment.
Manage — Integrates asset management, configuration change management, policy management and compliance reporting with automated data collection and verification tools. It also includes all of the functionality in the Monitor solution.
Protect — Provides application whitelisting and host intrusion prevention system (HIPS) capabilities to protect control systems from rogue applications and malware. It includes all of the functionality of the Manage solution.