Indegy announces patent for industrial control network cybersecurity software

April 17, 2019 -- Indegy announced it has received patent #10,261,489 from the United States Patent & Trademark Office for software technology that detects misconfigurations and hostile attacks in industrial control networks using active querying. The patented invention is part of the Indegy Industrial Cybersecurity Suite, which provides active and passive detection of threats in industrial control system (ICS) based environments. 

Industrial Control Systems use Programmable Controllers (PLC and DCS) to manage processes. Any changes to the firmware, application logic or configuration parameters of a controller, whether caused by human error or intentionally by a hostile attacker, can result in potentially life threatening physical and environmental damage. A recent investigative report published by the Wall Street Journal revealed that Russian agents have already hacked into the US electric grid. 
 
The patented invention works in the following way:

• The Indegy product requests that a controller, which controls one or more field devices in an industrial control network, report the code it is currently using.
• Indegy compares the code reported by the controller with a stored baseline version of the code.
• When a discrepancy between the code reported by the controller and the baseline version is detected, Indegy automatically issues a notification.
• Indegy also reduces the number of devices needed to achieve 100% visibility since it eliminates the need to tap into every network switch.
• Finally, Indegy works in environments that don’t have managed switches.

The Indegy Industrial Cybersecurity Suite is purpose-built to provide real-time situational awareness and visibility into ICS networks. It combines behavioral anomaly detection with policy based rules for threat detection and mitigation, and visibility into asset inventory. Industrial facilities including critical infrastructure such as utilities, water, energy, pharmaceutical and manufacturing use Indegy to automate operational oversight processes, identify human errors such as misconfigurations and failed maintenance, and protect against malware, cyber attacks and insider threats.

Did you Enjoy this Article?

Check out our free e-newsletters
to read more great articles.

Subscribe Now