Dragos, CMMC join to deliver security, cyber resilience to ICS, OT environments

Industrial cybersecurity firm Dragos has partnered with the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification Center of Excellence (CMMC COE) to bring together various cyber and national security communities of interest to reduce complexity, improve awareness, and accelerate industry effort. These measures will improve cyber resilience against growing threats from nation-states and criminal enterprises, the companies said on Monday.

The two partners will host working groups that enable collaboration and communication, co-sponsor symposiums, training programs and podcasts leveraging their combined cyber and IT expertise. They will also work across industry, government and academia to build on CMMC requirements to focus their attention, and offer security and cyber resilience of industrial control systems (ICS) and operational technology (OT).

Hosted by the Information Technology Acquisition Advisory Council (IT-AAC), a public-private partnership serving the public and private sectors, the CMMC COE will align with Dragos to identify and include proven capabilities within the CMMC COE Marketplace to improve cybersecurity protections and resilience for the global defense industrial base network of contractors, vendors, and suppliers. Far too often, security protection and cyber resilience discussions fail to include any true focus on the ICS and OT structure.

Dragos in Hanover, Maryland helps customers detect, prevent, investigate and respond to attacks from threat actors while driving their respective and complementary missions and objectives regarding the adoption, use and expansion of CMMC-based cybersecurity practices, risk management, and compliance for the DIB contractor, vendor, and supplier community of providers creating a broader CMMC ecosystem globally to improve security and cyber resilience.

“This new partnership will further help advance the goals and objectives for improving the supply chain security and resilience of the US Department of Defense (DoD),” said John Weiler, chairman of the board at CMMC COE, in a press statement.

“Dragos believes the adoption of the CMMC model for ICS / OT cybersecurity is a critical step in our mission to safeguard civilization,” said Steve Applegate, Dragos’ chief information security officer.

Dragos also on Monday expanded its presence in the Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) regions, with a new regional headquarters in Melbourne. The company also plans to increase employee headcount, and open a dedicated training center for ICS/OT cybersecurity practitioners, which are critical components of an ANZ market expansion initiative, designed to increase customer access to Dragos’s industrial cybersecurity technology and services.

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.