Earlier this year, the US Patent Office issued Patent No. 7,246,156 to Industrial Defender for a ‘method and computer program for monitoring an industrial network.’ Industrial Defender (ID) uses agent-based technology to report network data to a server. This monitors data, determines when an alarm condition occurs and sends out a notification. A ‘threat thermostat’ sets the threat level.
Write-only
The safety features embedded in ID’s agents rely on a write-only use of the TCP/IP protocol. Agents never read anything back from the server and so cannot be hacked or subject to buffer overflow attacks. The ID security event management console is ‘no more a single point of failure than is any other host in your network’.
Homeland Security
ID’s activity dovetails with the recent Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2007, Section 550 for Chemical Facilities which establishes risk-based performance standards for US plants. ID recently open an office in Asia and is planning further expansion in North America and Europe.
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