14 DAY TRIAL // Cybersecurity firm Symantec launched the Industrial Control System Protection (ICSP) Neural USB scanning station designed to protect critical infrastructure against cyberattacks that use zero-day and USB malware.
The ICSP Neural uses artificial intelligence to also fight against network intrusions targeting operational technology (OT) and Internet of Things (IoT) with potential personal safety and physical damage effects.
According to Symantec, OT is mission-critical for oil and gas, energy, manufacturing, and transportation industries which use outdated legacy systems that most times are almost impossible to safeguard with the help of traditional endpoint security.
"Despite this, the industrial control systems that power critical infrastructure often run on outdated Windows systems leaving them vulnerable to both known and unknown threats," says Symantec's press release.
"For example, the infamous Symantec-discovered Stuxnet worm used USB-based malware to manipulate centrifuges in Iranian nuclear plants – ultimately sabotaging a key part of the country’s nuclear program."
Symantec ICSP Neural is designed to provide organizations with extensive malware protection against malware, scanning for, detecting, and sanitizing malware-ridden USB devices.
Moreover, statistics gathered from organizations that already deployed the Symantec ICSP Neural show that roughly 50% of all USB devices scanned were infected with malware.
ICSP Neural comes supports releases from Windows XP to Windows 10
“USB devices are given away at events, shared between co-workers, and reused again and again for business and personal use, introducing the risk of accidental or malicious infection. The impact of connecting an infected device to a critical system can be devastating,” remarked Patrick Gardner, Symantec SVP of advanced threat protection and email security.
Symantec's neural network-based anti-malware protection scanning station will allow staff with no IT or security training to make sure that the operational tech environment where the solution is deployed is free of malware, with easy to monitor status via real-time signals emitted by the built-in LED light ring.
"It also detects adversarial machine learning attempts and initiates self-learning to provide protection against unknown threats," added Symantec. "The AI-powered technology can learn in real-time, leading to sustained efficacy with limited internet connectivity – up to twice as long."
At the moment, the Symantec ICSP Neural station can be deployed on Windows systems from XP to Windows 10, with support for Linux being planned for 2019.