MTL Claims a 'First' in Industrial Security World

MTL Instruments, a division of Cooper Crouse-Hinds, and Byres Security Inc. released a new loadable security module (LSM) for their Tofino Industrial Security Solution that discovers and identifies what devices are on the network and creates the firewall rules to control the traffic flowing to them, all without risk to the industrial process. This latest LSM, known as the Tofino Secure Asset Management module, locates devices and generates rules by analyzing the traffic on the network.

According to MTL, this is a first in the industrial security world and possibly also in the IT security market. Designed specifically for industrial control operations in critical industries such as oil and gas, manufacturing, utilities and power generation, the Tofino listens for traffic and then uses special characterization techniques to determine the types of control devices on the network. When it discovers a new device, it prompts the system administrator to either accept its deductions and insert the new device into the network inventory diagram, or flag the device as a potential intruder.

Eric Byres, CTO at Byres Security Inc., notes: “Passive scanning techniques have been discussed in academic literature or released in open source projects before, but as far as we are aware, this may be the first successful commercial application of the technology in the world.”

David Beresford, Business Manager Industrial Networks for MTL Instruments added: “The Secure Asset Management LSM is another example of the flexibility, simplicity and value adding features provided by the Tofino Industrial Security Solution, enabling customers to reduce the complexity and management of firewall configuration in a process environment.”