Industrial cybersecurity solutions provider Nozomi Networks on Tuesday announced the formal launch of the company’s research department, Nozomi Networks Labs.
While this is the formal launch of its research department, Nozomi has already conducted detailed analysis of some major threats targeting industrial control systems (ICS), including the GreyEnergy and Triton/Trisis malware families. The company has also created and released some tools that may be useful to defenders.
In the past year, Nozomi says it has also identified and reported over a dozen vulnerabilities affecting ICS products, including flaws that can lead to safety incidents or disruptions to production.
With the official launch of Nozomi Networks Labs, the company plans on dedicating even more resources to research efforts and also draw on the expertise of the broader cybersecurity community, including staff working for its customers, ICS threat intelligence and data analytics partners, universities, and individual researchers who might be interested in collaborations.
“Research, community collaboration and giving back have always been part of Nozomi Networks’ DNA,” said Andrea Carcano, co-founder and chief product officer of Nozomi. “Nozomi Networks Labs will allow us to make an even greater contribution to the ICS cyber security community.”
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Nozomi also announced on Tuesday that it has made some contributions to the open source fuzzing tool Radamsa in an effort to make it easier and faster to discover vulnerabilities in PLCs, RTUs and other devices that communicate over industrial networks.
Radamsa, developed by Aki Helin of Finland’s University of Oulu, is a general-purpose fuzzing tool designed for uncovering security flaws without too much human input. Nozomi says it has been using the tool since the company was founded and it recently submitted some changes that make it more efficient for industrial systems.
“Our enhancement tests the robustness of protocol stacks,” explained Moreno Carullo, co-founder and CTO of Nozomi. “This is an area where PLC, RTU and, in general, OT-device software, needs more focus. Higher quality is required to help prevent zero-day vulnerabilities and other security issues.”
Related: Schneider Electric Teams With Nozomi on Critical Infrastructure Security
Related: Fuzzing Tests Show ICS Protocols Least Mature
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