Mines, smelters and other heavy industries present unique cybersecurity challenges – sabotage of critical control system computers can pose serious safety threats to workers at these sites, and emergency shutdowns and other equipment failures can result in serious physical damage and major losses for these facilities. Worse, the pervasive threat environment continues to worsen – many of today’s targeted ransomware attackers are backed by nation-states, and are using the most sophisticated attack techniques ever seen. Mines, smelters and other heavy industries urgently need cost-effective and extremely robust cyber protections. Yes, intrusion detection, security monitoring and incident response have a role in robust security programs, but preventing the attack is the top priority at sites where worker safety and massive physical investments are at stake.

Waterfall’s Unidirectional Security Gateways provide hardware-enforced protection for critical sites. No cyber attacks at all can penetrate the Unidirectional Gateway hardware to put correct, continuous or efficient physical operations at risk. To explore unidirectional protections in greater depth, please download our use cases in this sector. Or submit a request for a free consultation with a Unidirectional Solutions Architect to explore your specific network constraints and business needs.