Veracity for U.S. Department of Energy

ALISO VIEJO, Calif. – July 19, 2017 — Veracity Industrial Networks, a leading developer of Industrial SDN-based technology for operational networks, today announced they have completed the first phase of delivery to the United States Department of Energy on their “Chess Master” project to ensure ICS network cybersecurity.

“We are very proud to make our first delivery of technology to the DOE on this all-important project” said Veracity CEO, Paul Myer.“Veracity is making significant progress in developing an OT Network platform that will strengthen cybersecurity of industrial networks with centralized visibility and control.”

Recently, a dangerous piece of malware, alternately named “Industroyer” or “Crash Override,” purpose-built to disrupt physical systems, was discovered in the wild. This malware was used on an electric transmission station north of the city of Kiev, blacking out a portion of the Ukrainian capital. Veracity is working closely with the DOE to safeguard U. S. systems against such attacks.

The Chess Master project was designed to research, develop, test, and commercialize a security validation and policy enforcement application that connects into a flow controller that manages all field networks centrally.  Veracity is working with partners Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories and Sempra Energy to bring these capabilities to today’s industrial networks.

Chess Master was preceded by “Watchdog,” a project focused on using industrial SDN networks for cybersecurity, in which the DOE concluded “This project has forever changed the way critical infrastructure networks are designed, secured, deployed and maintained. The cybersecurity and performance advantages achieved are significant, simply put traditional networking has been obsoleted.”

At the recent Grid Modernization Initiative Peer Review, leadership from DOE’s Western Area Power Administration spoke about the importance of ensuring the continued safe and reliable operation of the electric power grid. WAPA Senior VP and Sierra Nevada Regional Manager Subhash Paluru said, “The emergence of new technologies create cyber and other physical-security related issues. We all need to continue to be forward looking, evolving our services to meet the changes the future will bring to our industry. By sustaining the partnership between industry and government represented here today we can continue to collaboratively power the energy frontier.”

“Veracity now has the industry’s first SDN-based industrial network management and security platform.” added Myer.“This is the foundation needed to implement true security and gain visibility into the illusive OT/ICS Network and is likely the future of networking for power related installations.”

Veracity has developed a DOE/Chess Master resources page at www.veracity.io/doe where there is additional information on the history of the project and DOE’s original design, as well as other related content.