Strategic Defence Intelligence recognizes Waterfall Security’s achievements in protecting critical infrastructure

There’s a familiar name in the Strategic Defence Intelligence and Global Defence Technology Awards – Ones to Watch 2013: Waterfall Security. The awards recognize outstanding achievements in defense technology and innovation, validating Waterfall’s unidirectional security gateway technology as stronger than firewalls and underscoring the potential for protecting our nation’s critical infrastructure.

In its announcement of the shortlist of recipients, Strategic Defence Intelligence says that:

“Waterfall Security’s Unidirectional Security Gateway solutions offer effective protection for safety-critical and reliability-critical networks. Unlike competitors that specialise in military and government requirements only, Waterfall’s products cater extensively to the industrial space as well, important when you consider that some of the most sophisticated attacks emanate from outside conventional warfare.”

Highlighted in the assessment of Waterfall’s solutions is our Waterfall for Bulk Electric System (BES) Control Centers, protecting two-way communications via hardware-enforced Unidirectional Security Gateways replicating inter-control-center protocol (ICCP) communications endpoints in two directions.

Last year saw renewed focus in the vulnerability of our nation’s critical industrial infrastructures to cyberattacks. In February, President Barack Obama signed an executive order requiring the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to create a cybersecurity framework, a preliminary version of which was announced this past fall. (See our take on the framework here.) Perhaps the biggest news of 2013 was the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Version 5 standards, replacing the ineffectual Version 4 and allowing utilities to move forward with strengthening security programs. 

While there is still a lot of work to be done, we are optimistic that 2014 will see improvements made in securing the nation’s power grids and other critical industrial infrastructures. The more we talk, the more advanced our adversaries become. Firewalls are no match, and it’s time to take action to better secure our infrastructures.