Customers are impressed with the company's unique Unidirectional Security Gateway offering which allows the securing, monitoring, and maintaining of networks with the utmost ease
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 18, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Based on its recent analysis of the network security for industrial control systems, Frost & Sullivan recognizes Waterfall Security Solutions with the 2012 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Entrepreneurial Company of the Year. The company's security solutions offer effective protections for safety-critical and reliability-critical networks. Unlike competitors which specialize in military and government requirements, Waterfall's products cater extensively to the industrial space.
The protection of key assets and infrastructure, reduction of downtime, limited security budgets, and ultimate protection of the larger society are growing necessities for every control system operator. Waterfall addresses these challenges with its hardware-enforced Unidirectional Security Gateway offering, which permits information to leave industrial networks without introducing network connectivity risks to those networks.
"The network is the most vulnerable point of attack and therefore requires immediate attention in an inter-connected control system, and Waterfall's Unidirectional Gateways ensure optimum security for networks across user verticals in a more reliable and effective way than other technologies, such as two-way conventional firewalls and solutions offered by competing vendors," said Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Sonia Francisco. "In fact, Waterfall's pioneering solutions have the potential to be the industry's next game-changing standard by enabling a pathway toward proactive—rather than reactive—solutions and technologies."
Waterfall's Unidirectional Gateways work by creating exact real-time copies of industrial servers which end users can access on their management networks, while preventing the transmission of any information or attacks from those management networks back into the control network hosting the industrial servers. Replica servers created by the Waterfall solution are so faithful to the original industrial servers, that conventional firewalls can generally be replaced with Waterfall's hardware-enforced unidirectional solution without any change to end user procedures or training, and without any change to business application integration configurations. The Waterfall suite of hardware-enforced replication solutions includes a wide variety of industrial server replications, as well as IT monitoring replications and solutions for industrial networks with a need for temporary remote access.
In addition to strong security through innovative technology, Waterfall offers a host of advantages to customers. Unlike conventional firewalls, which have complex configurations which must be maintained correctly to be secure, most Waterfall solutions are very simple. No change to any Waterfall software configuration can cause the unidirectional hardware to transmit an attack back into the protected industrial network. The simplified configuration and the hardware's immunity to software errors and omissions significantly reduce network security management costs for Waterfall's customers. Furthermore, the Gateways have the flexibility to support additional integration and replication features once deployed, and customers can easily understand and manage their security, without the requirement of frequent updates or patches. Multiple levels of data integrity ensure system reliability and availability.
Further, the Gateways dramatically reduce the costs of compliance with NERC CIP, NRC, NEI, CFATS, and other regulations and standards. The recent NERC CAN-0024 guidance for example, recognizes that the secure, non-routable, unidirectional nature of the Unidirectional Gateway solutions does not trigger promotion of Bulk Electric System Critical Assets to Critical Cyber Assets. In addition, management, review, and external audit costs are reduced through the use the gateway solution, since there are fewer documents to check, the configurations are simpler, and there are fewer logs to examine. Strong partnerships with other best-of-breed SIEM and network monitoring security solutions assures users of interoperability and straightforward integration into defense-in-depth solutions.
Owners and operators of industrial control networks in all critical infrastructure sectors are taking note. Waterfall dominates North American nuclear generation, and worked with NERC to ensure that the v3 and draft v5 CIP standards recognize the strong security that comes with non-routable hardware-enforced unidirectional communications. Unidirectional Gateways are installed in all critical infrastructure sectors, with particular interest coming from water and upstream oil and gas sectors where many control systems are still air-gapped, as well as petrochemical pipelines where new cyber-security guidelines have recently been published.
"The sophistication of Waterfall solution makes it one of the must-haves among its users; its simplicity helps efficiently save time and expense, and industrial vendor partnerships provide control system owners and operators with peace of mind," said Sonia Francisco. "In fact, the entire North American nuclear generation industry has decided to use unidirectional devices, and the clear majority of those sites have selected Waterfall Unidirectional Gateways."
In recognition of these achievements, Frost & Sullivan is proud to present Waterfall with the 2012 Frost & Sullivan Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award. Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has demonstrated entrepreneurial spirit by devising a strong growth strategy and robustly implementing it. The recipient has shown strength in terms of innovation in products/technologies, leadership in customer value and speedy response to market needs.
Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.
About Waterfall Security Solutions
Waterfall Security Solutions Ltd. is the leading provider of Unidirectional Security Gateways™ and data diodes for control networks, SCADA systems, remote monitoring systems and segregated networks. Waterfall's security solutions reduce the cost and complexity of achieving compliance with NERC-CIP, NRC, NIST, CFATS and other regulations, as well as with cyber-security best practices. Waterfall's products are deployed in utilities, critical national infrastructures, and mission critical environments throughout North America, Europe and Israel. Waterfall's offerings include support for leading industrial applications, including OSIsoft PI™ Historian, GE Proficy™ iHistorian, the Siemens SIMATIC™/Spectrum™ and the GE OSM™ remote monitoring platforms, as well as OPC, Modbus, DNP3, ICCP and other industrial protocols. More information about Waterfall can be found on the company's website at: www.waterfall-security.com.
About Frost & Sullivan
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Contact:
Mireya Espinoza
P: +1-210-247-3870
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