Control Engineering

Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (0)

Cyber security in legacy environments
May 3, 2007

Yesterday some folks from Verano came by the Control Engineering complex to bring us up to date on some of their latest activities. Brian Ahern, president & CEO and their new marketing officer, Todd Nicholson had a discussion with your correspondent and other Control Engineering and MBT editors. (They were joined by Jen Case from Golin Harris to keep an eye on things.)

If the name Verano doesn't ring any bells, they may be better known for their product, Industrial Defender which is a cyber security suite for SCADA systems. The interesting part of the discussion, for me at least, was the idea that they have made a specific effort to create solutions for legacy control systems, primarily those running Unix. In fact, Brian said 90% of their deployments are Unix based. (Their Microsoft efforts so far involve Linux servers with Microsoft clients, but less than 1% of their installed base is running Windows.) They have specific software written to operate on 13 different variants of OEM platforms with large installed bases, and have everything designed to function optimally in the low bandwidth networks common to these older installations. (Check out an earlier article about cyber security on older systems.)

Verano is growing very quickly with new acquisitions happening regularly. (Watch this site for coming developments.) They now offer services in addition to their Linux based products, and can evaluate existing installations, recommend security strategies, and even manage security on an ongoing basis. Best of all, they understand the peculiarities of working in industrial control and with older technology. If you are hoping to get some additional years out of your installed control system but you need to take some serious steps for cyber security, these may well be the people to call.

Posted by Peter Welander on May 3, 2007 | Comments (0)