DOE Joins Dragos Neighborhood Keeper as a Trusted Advisor to Strengthen ICS/OT Cybersecurity in the Energy Sector

April 19, 2022 at 08:00 AM EDT

Dragos, Inc., a provider of cybersecurity for industrial controls systems (ICS)/operational technology (OT) environments, has announced an initiative with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to bolster security and increase visibility among the United States critical energy infrastructure community through Dragos Neighborhood Keeper. Through the public-private partnership announced today, DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER), under a Trusted Advisor role, will use Dragos Neighborhood Keeper. DOE analysts will be able to gain visibility into ICS/OT cyber threats facing the industrial infrastructure community participating in Neighborhood Keeper. All of this takes place without sharing any company data or sensitive identifying information, representing a completely unique capability of anonymous, real-time information sharing with OT stakeholders, including the government, on OT networks.

Specifically, DOE analysts will be able to view anonymized, aggregate information about threat analytics, indicators of compromise (IOCs), and the prevalence of vulnerabilities and asset types across Neighborhood Keeper participants. This enables analysts to not only understand what threats could be impacting the industrial community but also understand the possible exposure to existing and emerging supply chain risks.

Originally developed with the support of competitively awarded funding from CESER, Neighborhood Keeper is a free, opt-in, anonymized information-sharing network available to all Dragos Platform customers. Providing real-time intelligence across ICS/OT networks, it is deployed across major sectors of industrial infrastructure. Participants include sector-specific intelligence communities, private sector industrial organizations, and select government agencies.

“In 2018, the DOE’s CESER award supported the development of Neighborhood Keeper as a novel way to make ICS threat analytics and data more accessible to infrastructure providers serving our local communities,” said Robert M. Lee, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Dragos, Inc. “Seeing Neighborhood Keeper grow to serve organizations across the range of critical infrastructure sectors is a testament to what public agencies and industrial communities can achieve together to enhance national security while respecting and protecting data integrity and identity. Having DOE come full circle to join as a Neighborhood Keeper Trusted Advisor—just as NSA and CISA did recently as well — shows the government’s commitment to collaborate by using technologies the industry has already voluntarily adopted.”

“As we continue to advance initiatives to improve cybersecurity situational awareness and joint collaboration, DOE applauds Dragos for building this community and its willingness to collaborate with DOE in the spirit of collective defense and national security,” said Puesh Kumar, Director of DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response.

Dragos previously announced collaborations with Neighborhood Keeper including initiatives with the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a joint initiative with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation‘s (NERC) Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center (E-ISAC) to strengthen collective defense and community-wide visibility for industrial cybersecurity in the North American electricity industry, as well as initiatives with the Oil and Natural Gas Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ONG-ISAC) and the Downstream Natural Gas Information Sharing and Analysis Center (DNG-ISAC).

U.S. Government participation in Neighborhood Keeper is not an endorsement of Dragos, its goods, or services.

About Dragos, Inc.

Dragos has a global mission: to safeguard civilization from those trying to disrupt the industrial infrastructure we depend on every day. The practitioners who founded Dragos were drawn to this mission through decades of government and private sector experience.

Dragos codifies the knowledge of our cybersecurity experts into an integrated software platform that provides customers critical visibility into ICS and OT networks so that threats are identified and can be addressed before they become significant events. Our solutions protect organizations across a range of industries, including power and water utilities, energy, and manufacturing, and are optimized for emerging applications like the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT).

Dragos is privately held and headquartered in the Washington, DC area with regional presence around the world, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and the Middle East.