Amid dramatic rise in threats to industrial environments, NanoLock expands U.S. market presence and appoints cybersecurity industry veteran Jay Smilyk as GM of the Americas
NEW YORK–NanoLock Security, a leading provider of device-level, zero-trust OT protection for industrial manufacturing, food and beverage, chemical, pharmaceutical, and critical infrastructure industries, today announced the general availability of OT Defender for North American customers.
NanoLock’s OT Defender is an industrial cybersecurity solution that protects the integrity of industrial manufacturing companies and Operational Technology (OT) assets from unauthorized access and changes, whether it’s by outsiders, insiders, third-parties or human errors.
Cyberattacks on OT/ICS (Industrial Control Systems) in U.S. critical infrastructure are rapidly increasing in numbers, frequency and sophistication. Multi plant operations are especially at risk as these facilities manage complex distributed networks in different locations, operate a combination of legacy and new equipment, and may have technicians with remote access privileges and a large number of third party providers.
The alarming rise in attacks has led to an urgent need for zero-trust cyber protection at the device level and ushered in new OT/ICS regulations and guidance specific to industrial devices used in critical infrastructure and industrial operations. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has called for the “protection of individual OT components [devices] from exploitation” in recent guidance. According to Gartner® “through 2026, 75% of organizations with a formal zero trust strategy will explicitly exclude their CPS in production or mission-critical environments.”
“By applying device-level zero-trust OT protection, NanoLock’s OT Defender is the only solution that focuses on prevention rather than post-incident detection, and directly protects OT devices using a zero-trust approach,” said Eran Fine, CEO and co-founder, NanoLock. “This approach represents a key step forward for securing critical infrastructure in the U.S. Across the pond, the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore and the European Union have already issued regulations and best practices to address the need for zero-trust principles to protect device-level critical OT assets.”
OT Defender is designed to protect production environments from external and internal cyber incidents. It protects the operational integrity of production lines by preventing unauthorized and unauthenticated access, change requests, or update attempts of a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). It has no impact on performance and functionality and future proofs industrial organizations from new and upcoming regulations involving device-level zero-trust protection. OT Defender is already used by some of the world’s largest manufacturers, automotive as well as pharma companies.
Expanding Presence in the US Market with Appointment of Jay Smilyk as GM of the Americas
To launch the general availability of OT Defender in North America and expand NanoLock’s footprint across the region, the company has hired Jay Smilyk as GM of the Americas. With over two decades of experience in bringing cybersecurity solutions to the U.S. market, Jay will drive sales and establish strategic partnerships that contribute to the growth and success of the organization. Mr. Smilyk will focus on identifying opportunities for expansion of the OT Defender solution among industrial, manufacturing, and utilities companies and has already started building the U.S. team to support these objectives.
“Security approaches so far have been based on post-incident detection rather than prevention. While intrusion detection solutions and privileged access management are important, ultimately they rely on network connections, fail to protect against insider threats and misuse, and lead to alert fatigue,” said Jay Smilyk, GM of Americas. “NanoLock recognized this market gap early on and developed the only preventive security solution for critical infrastructure and industrial manufacturing by implementing zero-trust at the device level. I’m excited to join this world-class team and help industrial organizations prevent security liabilities in their OT systems, whether from outsider threats or through internal error, negligence, or even mal intent.”
Gartner, Predicts 2023: Cyber-Physical Systems Security — Beyond Asset Discovery, Published 23 November 2022 By Katell Thielemann, Wam Voster.
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
About NanoLock Security
NanoLock Security provides device-level zero-trust OT cybersecurity solutions to critical infrastructure customers, Food and Beverage, utilities, industrial and manufacturing companies. NanoLock’s solutions are shifting the paradigm from post-incident detection to device-level prevention and protection. Covering entire operational surfaces, NanoLock protects multi-vendor, new and legacy Industrial Control Systems (ICS) against outsiders, insiders, supply chain cyber events, and even human errors.
Trusted by the world’s largest industrial, manufacturing companies and utilities, NanoLock’s OT Defender solution ensures that every access, change request, or update attempt through a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), is always authenticated and authorized while ensuring compliance with international security standards and guidelines.
NanoLock is headquartered in Israel with offices in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
Visit www.nanolocksecurity.com for more information and follow NanoLock on Twitter and LinkedIn.