A diverse group of cybersecurity leaders joined together to launch the Operational Technology Cybersecurity Coalition. Founding members include Claroty, Forescout, Honeywell, Nozomi Networks, and Tenable, each with decades of experience in building, protecting, and defending industrial control systems and critical infrastructure assets.
What is the purpose of the cybersecurity coalition?
The coalition advocates for vendor-neutral, interoperable, and standards-based cybersecurity solutions and works with industry and government stakeholders on how to best deploy data-sharing solutions that enhance our country’s collective defence. Its efforts support the notion that competitive solutions promote innovation and strengthen our national security.
The coalition represents a broad spectrum of people, processes, and technology, and offers a unique and crucial perspective on the best practices applicable across the entire OT lifecycle.
Through its engagements with the US Gov’t, the coalition will encourage the adoption of interoperability and vendor-neutral cybersecurity features, provide expertise, share feedback on public policy proposals, and advocate for increased funding for federal OT cybersecurity.
What are stakeholder thoughts on the coalition?
“Given the significant exposure, a more dangerous set of threat actors, and the risks to national security and society, the government needs to leverage all cyber capabilities at its disposal to protect critical infrastructure,” said Grant Geyer, CPO & CISO, Claroty.
“No one entity has a monopoly on protecting critical infrastructure, and a vendor-neutral and open standards approach can ensure that we’re all working to keep the country safe.”
“Our combined customer base represents the largest and most impactful organisations in critical infrastructure,” said Shawn Taylor, VP of Threat Defence, Forescout.
“We have the potential to collect asset information, vulnerability data, threats and security incidents, and risk status to provide real time insight and data to help support the US government, asset owners and operators as part of our collective defence mission.”
“Although we may be competitive OT cybersecurity companies, we are extremely passionate about working collaboratively to improve the cybersecurity of these sometimes-fragile OT environments. This work is essential to protect our country’s critical infrastructure,” said Jeff Zindel, VP and General Manager of OT Cyber Security for Honeywell Connected Enterprise.
“To combat the growing number of threats against our critical infrastructure, it is vital that the cybersecurity industry embrace competitive innovation and open data sharing to collectively strengthen defences,” said Andrea Carcano, Nozomi Networks Co-founder and CPO.
“As a founding member of the coalition, we look forward to helping advance these key priorities to fortify the security of our nation’s most critical infrastructure,” Andrea said.
“Our companies represent the entire OT lifecycle, and can be leveraged strategically by the U.S. Gov’t in an advisory capacity and by critical infrastructure operators to protect themselves and improve our national preparedness. We look forward to working together to promote these goals,” said Marty Edwards, VP, Operational Technology Security, Tenable.
