OREANDA-NEWS. April 15, 2016. Kaspersky Lab has released a specialized solution to secure critical infrastructure and industrial facilities, Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity. The solution addresses the urgent need to manage industrial cyber-risks and protect the continuity and integrity of technological processes in industrial environments from cyber-attacks. This is vital as in these environments virtual threats have the potential to cross the boundaries of cyber-space and target field-level equipment, threatening both nature and human lives. Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity delivers a unified, holistic approach to IT security for industrial facilities, combining the company’s leading technologies, services and intelligence in one unique package.

Information technologies and process automation systems are vital to the operation of all modern industrial facilities - from power plants, refineries and assembly lines to railways, airports and smart buildings. Unlike traditional corporate IT networks, where confidentiality is the top priority, industrial control systems (ICS) demand faultless continuity and consistency of the technological process. Strict regulation and compliance can lead to unprotected operating of critical facilities if the cyber security measures do not meet safety requirements.  

Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity takes all these unique requirements into account and delivers protection to the ICS network at the layers most vulnerable to cyber-attacks –ICS/SCADA servers, HMI panels, engineering workstations, PLCs and more – securing them from cyber-threats without affecting operational continuity and consistency of the technological process.

ICS threat detection and prevention

The solution offers a combination of conventional security technologies, adapted for an ICS environment, such as anti?malware protection, whitelisting and vulnerability assessment functionality. This strong foundation is enhanced further with unique technologies designed specifically for industrial environments, including Integrity check for PLC programs, Semantic monitoring of process control commands and Telemetry data to detect cyber-attacks targeting physical part of an infrastructure.

Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity also provides a special Observability Mode that is focused only on the detection of cyber-attacks, operation personnel faults and anomalies inside industrial network.  All prevention and detection technologies are managed via a single centralized management console.

Specialized security services for critical infrastructure

The Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity solution enables all kinds of protection to help infrastructure operators build an efficient security strategy. This means going beyond threat detection and prevention technologies by adding specialized security services to develop incident response and prediction capabilities.

An efficient approach to security always starts with industrial cybersecurity training, both for IT security professionals and general employees (awareness programs) targeting the personnel awareness gap and mitigating the risks of human error. Awareness training programs include Baseline Security in ICS, Social attack in critical infrastructure environment and others. Expert services include Cyber Security assessment and Penetration Testing. They allow customers to strengthen their own intelligence, manifest the most critical vulnerabilities, including zero-day, and predict cyber-threats relevant to the company’s specific industrial assets and technological processes. Incident Response services delivered by our dedicated industrial cybersecurity team all around the globe help to localize the intrusion, mitigate consequences, stop attackers from penetrating further into the infrastructure, prevent subsequent attacks on a compаny and develop incident response plan for the future. 

Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of Kaspersky Lab, commented: "Today, the cybersecurity of industrial systems and critical infrastructures is of vital importance. An increasing number of such systems are using devices and channels that interact with the outside world. Sometimes they use equipment that was never intended for external access, not to mention software that was created decades ago and has not been upgraded since! This is a very serious issue because not only is the continuity of the production process at stake; the environment and even human lives can be at risk. Our solution is capable of ensuring the cybersecurity of the technology cycle at all levels of automated process control. We are also actively cooperating with manufacturers of automation systems in order to develop equipment that takes new cybersecurity standards and requirements into consideration."

Meeting the strict industry requirements

The highly customizable settings of Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity mean it can be configured in strict accordance with the requirements of different industries, facilities and production lines, allowing the solution to be effectively integrated into an organization’s existing ICS network and technological processes without any significant modifications both to the network and to the process. All our technologies are tested by and certified with leading ICS vendors. Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity has been successfully piloted and integrated in a number of projects, including at the VARS petrochemical terminal and TANECO oil refinery giant that chosen Kaspersky Lab to protect their industrial networks.

Marat Gilmutdinov, Head of Industrial Control Systems Department, TANECO, commented: “Having analyzed the potential threats faced by hi-tech oil refineries, we opted for the Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity solution by Kaspersky Lab. It was important for us to buy more than just a security solution. We needed to put comprehensive security measures in place to protect our operations against cyberthreats at any ICS level. We also needed to work with a vendor capable of assisting with any possible issues during deployment and operation.”

“The capabilities of Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity exceeded all our expectations. Just months after deployment, Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity detected an unauthorized connection attempt by an outside laptop to one of the controllers. The attackers were attempting to modify the operation settings of a sensor”, added Gilmutdinov.

Roman Yanukovich, SIA VARS Technical Director, commented: “VARS continuously monitors the evolution of the cyberthreats landscape and we realized that we were an increasingly vulnerable target for attack. Left unprotected, an IT security breach could severely disrupt and disable our automated operations with severe implications for the port’s commercial viability, the safety of our employees, the population of the nearby town of Ventspils, not to mention the risk of potential contamination of the Baltic sea. Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity enables us to protect the terminal and its customers from such an attack.”

More detailed information about Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity is available here.