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Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS) announced a new solution for industrial sites as they balance productivity and cyber security demands. According to the press release, Honeywell’s new Secure Media Exchange (SMX) protects facilities against current and emerging USB-borne threats, without the need for complex procedures or restrictions that impact operations or industrial personnel.
Currently, many plants either ban USBs, which is difficult to enforce and significantly reduces productivity, or rely on traditional IT malware scanning solutions, which are difficult to maintain in an industrial control facility and provide limited protection. These solutions fail to protect process control networks against the latest threats, and offer no means to address targeted or zero-day attacks.
The company’s cyber security experts, based on field experience across global industrial sites and feedback from Honeywell User Group customers, developed Honeywell’s SMX. Honeywell has one of the largest industrial cyber security research capabilities in the process industry, including an advanced cyber security lab near Atlanta. Honeywell also partners with cyber security leaders, including Microsoft, Intel Security, and Palo Alto Networks, among others, to develop new, highly-effective industrial threat detection techniques.
Honeywell’s SMX provides hassle-free, multi-layered protection for managing USB security, letting users simply plug in and check devices for approved use in the facility. Contractors “check-in” their USB drive by plugging it into an SMX Intelligence Gateway. The ruggedized industrial device analyzes files using a variety of techniques included with Honeywell’s Advanced Threat Intelligence Exchange (ATIX), a secure, hybrid-cloud threat analysis service.
SMX Client Software installed on plant Windows devices provides another layer of protection, controlling which USB devices are allowed to connect, preventing unverified USB removable media drives from being mounted, and stopping unverified files from being accessed. SMX also logs USB device connectivity and file access, providing a valuable audit capability.
Managed and maintained directly by Honeywell, SMX provides the easy and secure solution to USB security in industrial plants. It reportedly helps prevent the spread of malware through removable media; stops unverified files being read by Windows hosts; and, through the private ATIX connection, provides continually updated threat information and advanced analytics to help detect advanced, targeted, and zero-day malware.
Keywords: USB-Removable Media, Process Control Networks, Malware, Hybrid-Cloud Threat Analysis, ARC Advisory Group.