Extending BigFix to OT/IOT Assets

Highlights:

• Client desire to leverage BigFix beyond IT
• Verve Security Center extends BigFix into OT OS-based devices
• Custom-content adds agentless functionality to cover embedded networking, OT and IOT devices
• Provide integrated endpoint management across all endpoints
• Third-party integrations provide rich configuration, AV/Application whitelisting, backup, and other information
• Multi-site reporting allows for aggregated analysis and compliance visiblity
• Lower cost, better visibility, greater security analytics, comprehensive reporting

Extending BigFix to OT/IOT Assets

Industrial companies of all types want to find efficiencies and greater security from managing IT and OT assets in a cohesive manner. Each organization has its own approach to IT/OT/IOT integration, but all have a desire to drive greater efficiencies in tools and processes.

A very large electric power company with generation and transmission assets covering over 140,000 square miles with 12 thermal generation and another 35 renewable sites needed an end point management solution that could extend safely to cover their OT & IOT systems in their production environments. The critical customer needs included:

• Visibility of all IT/OT/IOT end points
• Deployment in multi-site environment with segmented networks
• Central compliance reporting
• Integrate other third party protective elements to achieve NIST CSF compliance
• Enable analysts to “think globally, and act locally” with central analysis and plant-level action

The customer needed to achieve comprehensive cyber security compliance across all of their end points. It was not enough just to cover IT devices outside the ICS firewalls. They needed end point management on Windows/Unix/Linux devices inside the firewalls – at level 2. In addition, they needed to manage compliance of embedded devices – from a range of OEM switches and routers to controllers, PLCs, protective relays, security cameras and swipe cards, etc. – at level 1. Furthermore, they had dozens of sites which needed a local security solution, but the ability for a central team to analyze site-specific information.

The Verve Security Center (VSC) was the answer. Extending industry-leading BigFix, VSC enables OT leadership to use the same tools as their IT counterparts. Moreover, in that same platform, they can also manage all of the complex, proprietary devices that exist in an OT environment using Verve’s agentless device interface (ADI). And VSC’s unique hybrid architecture enables multi-site reporting, with localized actions for patching, configuration, and other protective management.

Features

• Proven across all OEM vendor platforms
• Integrated IT-OT-IOT management
• Comprehensive solution for NIST CSF and other standards
• Software-based Agent & Agentless architecture deploys in minutes
• Detailed vulnerability assessments across all hardware, software & configuration settings
• Enterprise reporting across all locations, including remote, low bandwidth
• Rapid, RestAPI integrates with current tools

Benefits

• More efficient, integrated IT-OT solution
• Lower cost & faster deployment than alternative OT options
• No impact on network or end point performance with agent/agentless architecture
• OT-specific vulnerability management: from assessment – to remediation in one tool
• Faster time to resolution with a single database and console for incident response across all end point and network information
• Faster time to resolution by integrating actions and detection in same toolset
• Safe for all OT environments
• Easy-to-use for operations personnel with little additional training required