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OT and ICS Cyber Security Professionals Networking Event

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NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

PLANO, Texas – The leading  Zero Trust secure remote access technology, ConsoleWorks and Sectrio, a leader in IoT and OT security solutions have announced the successful completion of the first OT and ICS Security networking event in Houston. Over 30 CISOs from across North America joined security leaders from Sectrio and ConsoleWorks at the event.

Thought leaders from across industries such as manufacturing, oil and gas, mining, retail and healthcare spoke at the event outlining various aspects of OT and ICS security. The areas of deliberation included:

  • Attaining true Zero Trust and validating risk exposure with accurate KPIs
  • Preparing for new risk and security challenges in 2024; using AI as an ally to improve OT and ICS security
  • Leveraging secure remote access to improve shop floor security
  • Rolling out NIST CSF across the plant shop floor with minimal disruption
  • Building and deploying a comprehensive risk management program for IoT systems and networks
  • Plugging leaks in the risk and threat exposure matrix with measured interventions around visibility, threat perception, and asset intelligence
  • Countering automated threats with intuitive attack path analysis and improved SecOps
  • Deploying defense-in-depth through micro steps
  • Institutionalizing incident response through a multi-phase approach through optimized resource allocation

In addition to the speaking sessions, there were also gamified cyber incident response and intervention sessions where attendees participated. Industry leaders also set the agenda for OT and industrial security in 2024 by identifying priority areas for investments, visibility and control.  Speakers also touched upon the impact of AI on industrial security through use cases and spoke in-depth about how AI will influence security across the enterprise.

To book a free consultation or demonstration, reach us here.

The event was well-received
Over 89 percent of the attendees rated the event as ‘extremely helpful’ while 97 percent of the attendees agreed that there are clear and implementable takeaways for them and their teams post the sessions.

Sign up for the next security event near you here

About ConsoleWorks:

ConsoleWorks is a unified IT/OT cybersecurity and operations platform based in Plano, Texas, USA. It provides complete oversight, streamlines work processes, and enhances productivity and reliability. With secure access and control to any device, it creates a persistent, Zero Trust security perimeter for monitoring, auditing, and logging.

Media Contact

Company Name: ConsoleWorks

Contact Person: Pam Johnson

Email: pam.johnson@consoleworks.com

Country: United States

Website: https://www.consoleworks.com/

ConsoleWorks Zero Trust Platform and CISA JCDC – a Profound Partnership

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In the relentless battle against the ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats, collaboration between cybersecurity solution providers and government agencies is paramount. This paper shines a spotlight on the partnership between ConsoleWorks, a leading Zero Trust cybersecurity platform, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC). The focus of this collaboration encompasses ConsoleWorks’ pioneering features, specifically Secure Remote Access with a true protocol break, ConsoleWorks REACT (Risk Evaluation and Assessment for Cyber Threats), Log correlation and event management, and the indispensable role of continuous monitoring with the Baseline Configuration Management (BCM) feature. More about what the CISA JCDC partnership encompasses can be found here: CISA JCDC

ConsoleWorks: Pioneering Zero Trust Secure Remote Access with a Protocol Break

ConsoleWorks stands as an indispensable ally in the realm of cybersecurity, offering a suite of robust features designed to ensure secure remote access to critical infrastructure. In an era where remote work is the norm, ConsoleWorks’ Protocol Break capabilities take center stage. This innovative approach places a strong emphasis on controlled and encrypted connections, effectively acting as a “man-in-the middle” monitor for any unauthorized access attempts. ConsoleWorks permits authorized personnel to access critical systems without compromising security, fortifying the defenses against potential cyber threats.

ConsoleWorks REACT: Comprehensive Risk Evaluation and Assessment

The complex and ever-changing cyber threat landscape requires a comprehensive approach to risk evaluation and assessment. ConsoleWorks employs a state-of-the-art strategy known as ConsoleWorks REACT (Risk Evaluation and Assessment for Cyber Threats). This proactive approach aligns seamlessly with JCDC’s mission of collective defense. ConsoleWorks conducts continuous risk assessments, assessing vulnerabilities and monitoring configuration changes for situational and operational awareness. Such a strategy empowers organizations to identify potential threats before they escalate into significant security incidents, staying ahead of the evolving threat landscape.

Continuous Monitoring with BCM: Enhancing Cyber Resilience

ConsoleWorks bolsters its capabilities through Baseline Configuration Management (BCM), a feature that plays an instrumental role in continuous monitoring. BCM ensures that the configuration of critical assets remains aligned with established and authorized baselines. By continuously monitoring and managing configuration changes, BCM not only participates in risk evaluation but also mitigates mis operations and provides invaluable assistance in incident response and recovery. It serves as the guardian of operational integrity.

CISA JCDC remote monitoring and management cyber-defense-plan

ConsoleWorks Zero Trust Cybersecurity Platform for CISA JCDC

The collaboration between ConsoleWorks and CISA JCDC amplifies the capabilities of Secure Remote Access, ConsoleWorks REACT, and BCM. By integrating real-time threat intelligence from JCDC, ConsoleWorks’ cybersecurity platform becomes even more dynamic and adaptive, preemptively thwarting unauthorized access attempts. In partnering with JCDC’s, and through collaborative efforts, ConsoleWorks REACT provides a template for mitigating an organizations risk in real-time. Meanwhile, BCM actively contributes to risk mitigation, ensuring operational integrity, and expediting incident response and recover by tracking and monitoring “known-good” asset configurations for unauthorized changes and library vulnerabilities.

Enhanced Incident Response and Recovery

In the event of a cyber incident, ConsoleWorks plays a pivotal role in incident response and recovery. Its continuous monitoring and session recording capabilities offer a crucial forensic toolset. When an incident occurs, organizations can rely on ConsoleWorks’ recorded data to investigate the incident’s root cause, identify compromised systems, and assess the extent of the breach. This invaluable information accelerates the incident response process, reducing downtime and minimizing the impact of cyberattacks. Furthermore, with asset “known-good” running state baselines that are stored within ConsoleWorks, the restoration of an asset can coincide with the incident response operations.

Comprehensive Compliance and Reporting

ConsoleWorks is not only a robust cybersecurity platform but also a compliance enabler. It automates compliance checks and generates audit-ready reports, ensuring that organizations meet regulatory requirements, effortlessly. This feature is particularly crucial for critical infrastructure sectors that must adhere to stringent compliance standards. Through ConsoleWorks, organizations can maintain compliance without the burden of manual checks and reporting.

Scalability and Integration

ConsoleWorks is designed with scalability and integration in mind. As organizations grow and their cybersecurity needs evolve, ConsoleWorks adapts. It seamlessly integrates with existing security tools, creating a cohesive security ecosystem. Whether an organization operates on a small scale or a large enterprise level, ConsoleWorks scales to meet the demands of the ever-expanding threat landscape.

Conclusion

In a dynamic cyber threat landscape, partnerships such as the one between ConsoleWorks and CISA JCDC are the linchpins in safeguarding critical infrastructure and data. The emphasis on Secure Remote Access with protocol break, the adoption of ConsoleWorks REACT for comprehensive risk evaluation and assessment, logging and event correlation, and the inclusion of BCM for continuous monitoring underscore ConsoleWorks’ commitment to providing a holistic cybersecurity platform. This collaboration bolsters these features, demonstrating a proactive approach in addressing emerging threats, and increases the reliability of the organizations operations.

Together, they exemplify the potential of cooperation and innovation to mitigate the ever-evolving cyber threat landscape, securing the digital future of organizations and critical infrastructure. As organizations navigate the complex cybersecurity terrain, ConsoleWorks and JCDC stand as guardians, offering a beacon of resilience in an interconnected world, ensuring the secure, uninterrupted operation of critical infrastructure assets.

For organizations eager to explore the capabilities of ConsoleWorks and witness firsthand how it can strengthen their cybersecurity posture, we extend an invitation to contact us. Our dedicated team is poised to provide further information, address inquiries, and arrange a live demonstration of our solution. Contact us today to embark on a journey towards enhanced cybersecurity, proactive threat mitigation, and a fortified digital future. Together, we can navigate the ever-evolving cyber landscape with confidence and resilience.

[SCHEDULE A DISCUSSION AND DEMO]

 

Announcing ConsoleWorks REACT for Risk Evaluation & Assessment for Cyber Threats

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The industry acknowledges the necessity for a revolutionary and transformative approach to cyber risk assessment. Traditional methods, which frequently focus exclusively on individual assets and technologies or offer a point solution without a comprehensive view of the entire cyber risk landscape, are insufficient in today’s complex environment.

Cyber risk assessment should extend beyond assets to encompass various crucial elements including people: commands or actions, roles, training, and assets: known vulnerabilities of applications, operating systems, patch level, firmware, and configuration settings.

That’s where our platform, ConsoleWorks REACT, comes in. It combines comprehensive assessment of assets and user’s impact on assets through their day-to-day activity, with real-time cyber situational awareness. It epitomizes the integration of advanced risk and threat assessment, mitigation, and remediation technologies. Our distinctive, context-driven approach to risk awareness and threat mitigation provides organizations with unparalleled insights.

Organizations gain precise insights and the ability to proactively identify and respond to potential security risks and operational vulnerabilities before they occur.

ConsoleWorks REACT embodies the core principles of Zero Trust security, “never trust, always verify”. As the centralized human response and access control, logging, configuration monitoring, endpoint password management solution, the ConsoleWorks platform offers robust control over user access to essential resources for managing critical infrastructure operations. Think of the ConsoleWorks platform as the firewall for humans as the network firewall is to network traffic.

This comprehensive approach empowers organizations to adopt a proactive and vigilant stance, safeguarding the integrity and reliability of critical infrastructure.

TDi Technologies has been at the forefront of innovation in cybersecurity, working with funding from the Department of Energy (DoE) on this unprecedented project aimed at mitigating human errors within critical infrastructure.

Learn more about ConsoleWorks REACT, here.

Register for the ConsoleWorks REACT webinar on November 1, 2023, here.

Schedule a live demonstration of ConsoleWorks REACT, here.

Just-in-Time Request Access (JIT Access) and File Downloads in ConsoleWorks

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As part of ConsoleWorks’ robust Secure Remote Access capabilities, the Just-in-Time Request Access feature greatly enhances security by enabling specific control over when users, including employees, contractors and vendors, are granted access to critical devices.  For example, the owner of a group of devices running a critical application, such as email, or a plant manager in a specific location, can control when access is granted, effectively minimizing the attack surface.

The Request Access feature is highly configurable and can be enabled or disabled on a device-by-device basis.  If enabled, the device icon appears as muted, indicating that it can only be accessed by request. The requestor can select one or multiple devices requiring access and provide a timeframe for immediate or future access. A specific duration can be requested or a default can be defined.

just in time request access (JIT Access) workflow in ConsoleWorks

 

After the request is submitted, ConsoleWorks notifies the appropriate approver, who then approves or denies access.  Throughout the process, the requestor is provided with status indicators of where the approval is in the flow.

Just-In-Time Request Access (JIT Access) manager review process in ConsoleWorks cybersecurity platform

By enabling access by request only, ConsoleWorks helps organizations reduce the risk of unauthorized access to critical devices, minimizes insider threats and further strengthens compliance requirements with audit reports with relevant information, enhancing visibility and oversight.

File Download

ConsoleWorks is designed to empower users to perform their jobs securely and one area where it excels is file transfer. Unlike other Secure Remote Access solutions, ConsoleWorks offers robust features to safeguard critical infrastructure against malware and viruses.

The first layer of protection inherent to ConsoleWorks is a protocol break between the user’s laptop and the device.  This provides a secure barrier between the user’s device and the infrastructure, preventing any malicious software from penetrating the network accidentally.  Optionally, ConsoleWorks integrates with file scanning technology to ensure that files transferred to a device are free from malware and viruses.

To transfer files from a user’s laptop to a device, ConsoleWorks employs a three-step process. First, the file is moved from the user’s laptop to ConsoleWorks.  Second (if desired) if a file scanning solution like the one available from ODIX is used, the file is automatically placed in a “Dirty” folder. If a file appears in that folder, ODIX will scan it and clean it.  Once the file has been scanned and found to be free of malware and viruses, it is moved to a “Clean” folder on ConsoleWorks.  Finally, the file is then transferred to the destination device, which can be either local or on the network.

With its advanced security features and user-friendly interface, ConsoleWorks provides a reliable and secure solution for file transfer. To see ConsoleWorks in action or how it can help for your use cases, talk to us here.

ConsoleWorks 5.5 Release: Dashboards, Widgets, Centralized or Distributed Management

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The new ConsoleWorks 5.5 release updates put you front and center. With new dashboards that help you visualize and prioritize key devices, events and areas that need attention, and a Reflection System that is empowering your teams to achieve compliance, regulatory and architecture needs (Purdue, IEC 62443) with centralized or distributed architectures.

New Operations Dashboard and Widgets

The 5.5 release introduces new dashboard and widget updates making ConsoleWorks easier than ever to use, while increasing your productivity and keeping your security front and center.

 

Action Bar
Sometimes you need to do something quickly and searching through your interface to get to that action can be a timely process. The new action bar lets you quickly execute on-demand actions on selected assets in your fleet, from managing/denying Just in Time access requests, rebooting endpoints, pulling reports, downloading files and more. These actions are at the tips of your fingers.

 

 

 

 

Activities Widget
Events related to your assets are important and you need to know about them. Now you can separately visualize events based on user-specified categories. Visualize and define events based on your specific needs (ex: filter based on certain vendor events or process events only).

 

 

 

Grouping Widget – When your fleet is large, it can be difficult to know what assets or events need attention first. With smart filtering, you can drill down on those assets and events to identify your areas that need attention first. Group assets based on any number of categories (security, business unit, location, etc.)

Centralized or Distributed Management with Reflection System

ConsoleWorks 5.5 introduces our new Reflection System. It enables distributed architectures and security at a unique level of granularity. Those with distributed architectures can initiate communications from higher-level security zones to lower ones, enabling a secure conduit that grants new operational efficiencies and situational awareness.

Compliance, Regulatory and Architecture
Maintain compliance, regulatory and architecture needs like Purdue or IEC 62443. Isolate systems and control communications between security zones and conduits. Enforce Zero Trust architecture.

Security and Zero Trust
Receive awareness from all sites, see what is happening where. No trust is granted to a lower zone, access must be initiated from your higher zone.

Control and Operational Efficiencies
Distribute files across your fleet quickly. Drop file into a source and share through one conduit and secure path. Your conduit has authentication at both ends and can perform multiple functions (file transfer, remote access, identity/event management). With communication direction being initiated from the higher-level security zone to the lower (like site/plant owners controlling access requests and file downloads), you maintain control in your distributed architecture.

See it in Action

Those are the biggest updates you can expect in the new ConsoleWorks 5.5 release. To see ConsoleWorks in action and how it helps you enforce your needs while increasing productivity and ease of use, you can see our new product demo here.

If you have more questions about how ConsoleWorks can help you or want to see a personalized look at it, contact us here!

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