Tweet

CeBIT Innovation: gateprotect Offers Unique New SCADA Protection for Energy Infrastructure

German firewall specialist gateprotect reveals new Next Generation Firewall with specialized protection for SCADA controllers in the energy sector at CeBIT 2015

Hamburg, 10 March 2015 – gateprotect, a Rohde & Schwarz company, and Germany–s leading provider of advanced network firewalls, announced unique new protections for SCADA networks used in the energy generation sector.
gateprotect Network Protector 5.2 is the only Next Generation Firewall in the world that supports special features for the specialized SCADA protocols used in the energy sector, such as IEC 60870-5-104. Network Protector 5.2 also includes a new Forensic Traffic Capture function and outbound file type control, providing system managers with a completely new level of protection for energy infrastructure control networks.
“gateprotect’s new Network Protector Next Generation Firewall allows energy infrastructure providers to implement complete control over both application type and individual command types passed by applications towards SCADA controllers,“ said John May, gateprotect CEO. “This unique functionality enormously increases the security of SCADA-based energy control systems, and also adheres to expected new Critical Infrastructure Protection regulations currently being drafted in major energy markets such as Germany.”
In addition to detailed whitelist control of application and command types, gateprotect–s Network Protector 5.2 Next Generation Firewall now also offers Forensic Traffic Capture. Forensic Traffic Capture allows network administrators to capture specific network traffic like IEC 60870-5-104. These records support the detailed analysis of network traffic and thereby the manual and specific adaptation and improvement of the set of rules for the protection against attacks.
The new Network Protector 5.2 firewall also delivers new outbound protections, ensuring that sensitive documents or data cannot leak to the outside-world. Specific document types, such as PDFs containing secure internal information for example, can be blocked before they leave the internal firewall perimeter created by the gateprotect Next Generation solution.
“We see the new Network Protector firewall offering a strong last line of defense for existing control networks. Network Protector 5.2 is a best-of-breed Next Generation Firewall, designed and assembled in Germany with one of the world’s fastest single pass deep packet inspection engines,” said gateprotect CTO Christoph Becker. “This means there is no throughput or performance penalty in adding a last line of defense. It is really an ideal solution for SCADA energy control networks with application-specific traffic.”
Legacy SCADA energy control networks are under increasing attack, with hundreds of new attacks being detected every day. Tests at several energy companies have shown that generic firewalls leave the SCADA protocols used in energy supply largely unprotected. But with gateprotect Network Protector acting as a last line of defense, located inside the existing generic firewall perimeter, system managers can now intercept any remaining SCADA-specific threats before they can cause disruption or damage to critical infrastructure assets.

At CeBIT 2015, gateprotect will foreground critical infrastructure protection as a trade fair topic, together with the value added distributor sysob. 16 – 20th March, the security experts inform about security concepts to protect SCADA systems at the heise Security Plaza, hall 6, booth B16 and in lectures. A short explanatory movie is already showing the unique features and operation of the new Network Protector 5.2.
Download this press release under: http://www.gateprotect.com