| Office Address | Contact | |
|---|---|---|
| Norman Data Defense Systems | Name: | David Robinson |
| Exchange House | Job Title: | |
| 494 Midsummer Boulevard | E: | david.robinson@norman.com |
| Milton Keynes | T: | 01908847413 |
| BUCKINGHAMSHIRE | F: | 08701202901 |
| MK9 2EA | W: | |
As manufacturing systems continue to become more and more integrated with enterprise systems, the proprietary technology that once formed the plant floor is now making way for standardised architecture with TCP/IP based networks replacing the outdated coaxial and twisted pair networks.
Whilst the benefits of such a convergence are enormous, the once isolated plant floor has now become exposed to a whole host of security risks including malware attacks.
Malware attacks whether direct or indirect, are a real threat to manufacturer's who wish to avoid the interruptions to production that is often caused by simple malware infection. And the cost associated with an interruption to production as a direct result of malware indeed is high. Given the fact that 84% of very large businesses and 43% of large businesses reported a malicious code infection, the dangers that manufacturing systems now face are very real.
Corporate security measures not sufficient to protect production
With many manufacturing systems now connected to the corporate networks, a large number of IT departments within manufacturing companies are relying on firewalls at the perimeter or in between the business and plant networks to protect themselves. However, these simple security measures are not enough to prevent today's type of malware attack which can bypass firewalls with relative ease.
Recent research reports have found that nearly 40% of all such types of incident within manufacturing were transmitted from the business network to the manufacturing system, a clear indicator that standard corporate IT security is not protecting plant systems effectively.
Introducing Norman Network Protection for Manufacturing
Norman Network Protection is the ideal solution for protecting your manufacturing systems from costly malware infections. Operating as network device, NNP essentially provides an invisible layer of malware protection between the manufacturing system network and any internal or external connections. It can be positioned anywhere within the manufacturing network infrastructure and requires no network adaptation, providing for a fast and trouble free installation.
Capable of monitoring both the inbound and outbound data traffic from the network that it protects, NNP can contain any malware incidents to a single point or area, and prevent widespread infections from business networks to production or vice versa.
System delays - not a problem
Similar proxy based solutions have several drawbacks. The most important consequence is the delays introduced to the data traffic by the proxy itself. A proxy based system holds back the data in order for it to be checked, this often can cause system delays which cannot be tolerated within a manufacturing network that needs to operate in real time. NNP avoids such problems by using stream based scanning techniques to scan the data traffic in real time and forwarding immediately.
Prevention
When the NNP detects a malicious file in transfer on your network, it actively terminates the file transfer and blocks the specific network path to prevent other users or systems from accessing the same file. The source computer remains operational with no further access to the malicious file
Transparency
NNP operates on the packet layer in the network, and is transparent to the IP traffic. No IP reconfiguration of your network is needed, just add an address for the administration interface and the NNP is instantly protecting your network.
Reporting
The NNP gives you real time statistics and reports, presenting detected and blocked malware, system statistics and network statistics. The NNP's message handling system can send you incident emails and report to an operations center by using SNMP.
About Norman
Celebrating our 25th anniversary in 2009, Norman is a highly regarded IT security company offering world class solutions to home users, small businesses, corporates, and other large organisations throughout the world. Through our unique SandBox technology Norman leads the way in proactive IT Security and malware forensics.