Dragos, Inc. acquires NexDefense for industrial control system visibility

March 18, 2019 – Dragos, Inc. a provider of industrial asset identification and threat detection platforms, has acquired Atlanta-based NexDefense, a provider of industrial controls system (ICS) visibility technology.

As part of this announcement, the company also introduced Dragos Community Tools, a set of free assessment tools to help organizations of all sizes move towards comprehensive ICS security.

“With the acquisition of NexDefense, we can provide a free asset identification tool specifically for operators looking to start with situational awareness and enable continuous asset monitoring capabilities, thereby helping move our entire community closer to the next level of maturity in security against cyber threats,” says Robert M. Lee, CEO and founder of Dragos.

Dragos Community Tools provide organizations with asset identification capabilities, a first step to effective threat detection and response. This is especially important in ICS environments, as they can contain thousands of assets – many potentially unknown to industrial organizations – with interconnected communications.

The tools in the suite include the NexDefense product Integrity for continuous, passive ICE network monitoring, as well as Cyberlens, which processes packet captures and visualizes ICS environments. 

Dragos is providing free access to Dragos Community Tools, so that many in the community can take steps to effectively understand what assets they have and how their ICS assets function, communicate, and behave. This visibility is the prerequisite for development and deployment of cybersecurity architectures to detect and respond to threats.