New Project to Demonstrate Approaches to Cybersecurity for the Industrial Internet of Things for Distributed Energy Resources
PRESS RELEASE - Cambridge, MA - Spherical Analytics (S|A), a Context Labs company, is excited to announce collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST’s) National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) in their Securing the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT): Cybersecurity for Distributed Energy Resources Use Case Consortium.
NCCoE to Address Cybersecurity Challenges of Distributed Energy Resources
This consortium was formed to develop practical, interoperable cybersecurity approaches that address the real-world needs of complex Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) systems. The capabilities demonstrated by the consortium will focus on helping energy companies secure the IIoT information exchanges of distributed energy resources (DERs) in their operating environments.
Participation places CXL/S|A technology at the forefront of Cybersecurity for IIOT and DERs. The collaboration will result in a publicly available NIST Cybersecurity Practice Guide (Special Publication 1800 series), which will document the reference design for securing IIoT in commercial- and/or utility-scale DER environments and will include an example solution that uses existing, commercially available cybersecurity products.*
Spherical Analytics Contributions
S|A plans to contribute the Immutably™ platform, Proofworks™ service layer, Scrivener™ distributed transaction ledger, and EdgeShare™ security layer to support the mission of accelerating the adoption of secure technologies and providing real-world standards-based cybersecurity capabilities. These core technology innovations were developed in partnership with Context Labs, and specifically fine-tuned and targeted for cybersecurity, IIoT, and DERs. Further, the S|A/Context Labs teams have deep and at-scale experience in establishing and influencing global standards.
The Immutably™ platform provides all-source data ingestion, cryptographic proofing services, blockchain-based distributed ledgers, graph analytics, machine learning and other AI enablement from its microservices architecture to help establish and persist high levels of cyber-resilience, information security, and trust in the solutions Immutably™ enables.
ProofWorks™ is a simple to use, configurable digital trust platform with a secure API that allows users to generate and apply multi-point cryptographic proofs of critical digital assets across their lifecycles.
Scrivener™ is the distributed transaction ledger that offers multiple consensus and reconciliation methodologies, as well as interoperability with many other popular ledger approaches.
The S|A Immutably™ platform and associated services deliver pedigree through source attestation services, provenance through the persistent proofing services, and enables the secure discovery, application and distribution of critical digital asses, such as the command communications among DERs controllers. S|A can simultaneously safeguard and share data, analytics, and findings while continuing to ensure its provenance and immutability, via its EdgeShare™ services layer.
Chris Rezendes, Chief Business Officer for Spherical | Analytics, has nearly three decades experience in national security, infrastructure and industrial cyberphysical systems. “The central importance of energy security – secure, mission-available, climate-resilient, cost-effective, power – cannot be overstated. With digital capabilities permeating every facet of our most critical and complex systems, the key to energy security from national to individual level, is rooted in our ability to deploy, operate and upgrade Cyberphysical security services for the emerging, highly distributed /decentralized and privately-financed DER-driven energy grid,” Rezendes stated.
S|A CEO & Co-Founder, inventor and Internet pioneer Dan Harple shared, “The power and the beauty of the NIST /NCCOE CRADA is its emphasis on standards-based commercial off-the-shelf offerings as core elements of a reference architecture that will support myriad implementations. They too will all share the critical requirement that they trust the data that is enabling their systems to become intelligent and resilient. We are proud to be a key part of this Consortium and eager to put our team and technology in position to make Asset-Grade-Data and Asset-Grade-Analytics core elements of the future of DERs management and EP grid Cyberphysical security.”
The project will address the following areas of interest:
· the information exchanges between and among DER systems and distribution facilities/entities
· and the cybersecurity considerations involved in these interactions
· the processes and cybersecurity technologies needed for trusted device identification and
· communication with other devices
· the ability to provide malware prevention, detection, and mitigation in operating environments
· where information exchanges are occurring
· the mechanisms that can be used for protecting both system and data transmission
· components
· data-driven cybersecurity analytics to help owners and operators securely perform necessary tasks
Additional information on this consortium can be found at:
Learn more about other CXL and S|A Immutably™ offerings:
· Immutably™ for Opportunity Zones
· Immutably™ for Asset Grade Data
To learn more about Immutably™, Proofworks™, Scrivener™, Edgeshare™, and S|A, our work with NCCoE, or any of our partners, visit us at:
Website: www.sphericalanalytics.io.
Twitter: @SphereAnalytics
E-mail: press@sphericalanalytics.io
Spherical | Analytics (S|A), with offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts; New Bedford, Massachusetts and Amsterdam, The Netherlands, mission is to source and organize the world’s environmental information, with embedded blockchain-enabled provenance and veracity, to radically accelerate positive impacts and outcomes to Planet Earth.
S|A develops environmental impact solutions that combine blockchain technologies with analytics attestation tools and machine learning, big data and IoT. The company’s platform is called Impact Analytics™, a powerful platform for ingesting, cleansing and deriving intelligence from diverse datasets within the context of environmental impact. The company uses blockchain technologies to ensure provenance and authenticity of data – crucial at a time of alternative facts and diminishing transparency.
* The NCCoE is a public-private partnership that brings together industry organizations, government agencies and academic institutions under cooperative research and development agreements to collaborate in the creation of practical cybersecurity solutions that address the needs of specific industries as well as broad, cross-sector technology challenges. NIST does not evaluate commercial products under this project and does not endorse any product or service used.