NexDefense Announces Commercial Availability of Sophia, an Industrial Network Anomaly Detection (INAD) System
Atlanta (PRWEB) November 19, 2014 -- NexDefense, the foremost authority on cybersecurity for automation and control systems, today announced commercial availability of Sophia, an Industrial Network Anomaly Detection (INAD) system. Sophia empowers engineers, security analysts, and control system operators in critical infrastructure and defense facilities with the real-time knowledge needed to maintain system integrity and aggressively combat sophisticated cybersecurity threats. Sophia is built specifically for automation and control systems and bolsters security compliance without sacrificing productivity, optimization or performance.
“The emerging cyber threats to our nations’ critical infrastructure – such as power plants, oil refineries and defense facilities – have the extraordinary capacity to negatively impact millions of people and commerce, all at once, and for prolonged periods of time,” said Michael Assante, NexDefense’s co-founder and chief security strategist. “All companies whose day-to-day operations are powered by automation or control systems will benefit from Sophia's intuitiveness, flexibility and proactivity in uncovering anomalies that might signify intrusion or loss of control.”
Sophia – Cyber Security Software for Automation and Control Systems:
Sophisticated threats on the automation and control systems of power, oil & gas, and defense facilities are intensifying as a result of highly intrusive and targeted cyber attacks initiated by various criminals, including state-sponsored espionage and organized crime. Many of these attacks, should they be successful, are capable of critically hindering the operations and productivity of important services, negatively impacting public health and safety, the economy, national security.
As commercial software made exclusively available through NexDefense, Sophia safely and proactively detects anomalies in automation or control system communications that may signify an attempt to intrude or discover systems. It then alerts defenders before an adversary can have an impact.
Sophia originated in response to the concerns of energy and defense organizations, and the recommendations of engineers assessing real-time threats and response protocols. It is the result of extensive collaboration between the United States Department of Energy, Battelle Energy Alliance and the cybersecurity experts of Idaho National Laboratory (INL). Since obtaining exclusive rights to Sophia in 2013, NexDefense has been in beta testing with close to 50 organizations, spanning utilities, oil & gas, and government. In this testing, Sophia has proven to limit risk, reduce liabilities, and ensure the integrity of the automation and control systems.
“In recent years control systems professionals have seen a significant spike in reported vulnerabilities and attacks that have the potential to impact operations," said Tim Conway, SANS Technical Director - ICS and SCADA. "With NexDefense's commercial release of Sophia, operators of our nations' most critical infrastructure gain the capacity to proactively detect and respond to abnormal behavior within their control system environments, and integrate that situational awareness information into real time system operation decision making."
To request a demo or pricing for Sophia, click here.
About NexDefense:
NexDefense empowers industrial automation and control system operators in critical infrastructure and defense facilities with the real-time knowledge needed to maintain system integrity and combat sophisticated security threats. Through Sophia, a patent-pending Industrial Network Anomaly Detection (INAD) system, engineers, security, and system control operators can covertly maintain direct insight and control over threats and increase compliance without sacrificing productivity, optimization or performance. Originally funded by the United States Department of Energy and developed at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) under the management by the Battelle Energy Alliance, Sophia’s proven capacity to continuously identify, analyze and warn about deviations from normal operations limits risk, reduces liabilities and ensures the integrity of critical industrial automation and control systems. For more information on NexDefense, visit http://www.nexdefense.com and follow us @NexDefense.
Caroline Cassidy, AR|PR, http://arpr.co, +1 404-791-9723, [email protected]
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