Nozomi joins Accenture Security, IBM Security, Mandiant on Elite Cyber Defenders Program

Industrial cybersecurity vendor Nozomi Networks announced Tuesday its new Elite Cyber Defenders Program, with Accenture Security, IBM Security, and Mandiant (now part of Google Cloud) as initial participants. The program enables incident response organizations to combine Nozomi’s AI-powered OT and IoT monitoring and detection technologies with the skills and services of these incident response organizations, to provide the best tools and services for the critical infrastructure sector.

Elite Cyber Defenders can provide the necessary resources to respond to cyber incidents amidst these skills shortages. This technology-led, collaborative initiative provides critical infrastructure customers with access to superior cybersecurity defense tools, expert-trained field resources, and OT (operational technology) threat intelligence curated for OT environments.

Nozomi Networks Elite Cyber Defenders collectively staff more than 250 certified Nozomi Networks experts on their combined global OT incident response teams and utilize Nozomi Networks’ solutions for in-depth forensic analysis, proactive OT assessments, and rapid response capabilities for customers. 

Elite Cyber Defenders are also committed to working with Nozomi Networks Labs on shared threat intelligence and joint security research focused on identifying novel malware and new TTPs employed by threat actors. Each participant in the program will offer custom-designed incident response and assessment programs for joint customers. The establishment of this program reinforces Nozomi Networks’ commitment to industry collaboration, superior service, and meaningful tools to customers across their OT/IoT/IT networks.

Accenture Security collaborates with the brightest minds in cybersecurity to build cyber resilience for organizations, while its Accenture Security Industry solutions help organizations with a better cybersecurity strategy through advanced technologies.

The Elite Cyber Defenders Program will bring together IBM’s incident response capabilities and expertise and Nozomi Networks’ deep OT/IoT experience from the process automation field and thorough knowledge to support organizations. With the Elite Cyber Defenders Program, participating members will aim to further enhance their collaboration in areas, such as incident response, research, and threat intelligence sharing on cloud, IT, OT, and IoT.

Mandiant scales its intelligence and expertise through the Mandiant Advantage SaaS platform to deliver current intelligence, automation of alert investigation, and prioritization and validation of security control products from Nozomi Networks and others.

“When it comes to protecting critical infrastructure in the face of an attack, accurate and timely information, full system visibility and expert response can make the difference in minutes or hours, vs. days, weeks or months of system downtime and remediation,” Edgard Capdevielle, CEO at Nozomi Networks, said in a media statement. “Nozomi Networks’ Elite Cyber Defenders program brings the industry’s most purpose-built detection technology, threat intelligence, and incident response teams together for the best possible defense, without compromise.”

“The heightened geopolitical landscape is fueling a resurgence of cyberattacks from groups who are more structured and destructive – and targeting high-value critical infrastructure,” Jim Guinn, global cyber industry (including OT/IoT) lead at Accenture, said. “Having more certified Nozomi Networks engineers than anyone coupled with the Elite Cyber Defenders program will address a critical need as our clients look to manage these cyber risks.

Guinn added that “combined with our deep OT incident response services that are integrated into our Managed Extended Detection and Response capability means we can immediately help organizations proactively strengthen their overall cyber resilience.”

“Critical infrastructure organizations are at the eye of the storm when it comes to cyberattacks. The potential for immediate impact across society due to a security incident on industrial systems makes it all the more important that the security industry works together on incident response readiness,” according to Charles Henderson, head of IBM Security X-Force. “By integrating X-Force’s OT Incident Response expertise with Nozomi Networks’ market-leading OT Security capabilities, we’re doing just that – arming our defenders with technology built to enhance speed, visibility, and efficiency to act in their response and recovery for industrial clients.” 

“Mandiant is excited to partner with Nozomi Networks to provide our customers with a comprehensive incident response solution,” said Charles Carmakal, CTO at Mandiant Consulting. “Nozomi Networks’ network visibility platform provides critical context for Mandiant’s incident response experts, helping them to quickly identify and contain threats. This partnership will help our customers to better protect their critical infrastructure from cyber attacks.” 

The Elite Cyber Defenders Program comes a day after a group of OT cybersecurity companies unveiled plans for ETHOS (Emerging THreat Open Sharing), an open-source, vendor-agnostic technology platform for sharing anonymous early warning threat information across industries with peers and governments. 

The OT-centric, open-source platform is a cooperative development in the OT security industry, with the goal of sharing data to investigate early threat indicators and discover new and novel attacks. Founding ETHOS community members include 1898 & Co., ABS Group, Claroty, Dragos, Forescout, NetRise, Network Perception, Nozomi Networks, Schneider Electric, Tenable, and Waterfall Security.

Anna Ribeiro

Industrial Cyber News Editor. Anna Ribeiro is a freelance journalist with over 14 years of experience in the areas of security, data storage, virtualization and IoT.