Protecting Data on Industrial Control Systems

Cigent solutions were designed and developed with and for US Intelligence and Defense communities. All employees, including Cigent software development, are based in the US. The team includes multiple personnel with TS/SCI clearance with decades of data protection and operational experience to support your requirements.

Cigent solutions have been tested and validated by leading Federal agencies including MITRE, NIST, NSA, NIAP, the Air Force, Cyber Resilience of Weapon Systems (CROWS), and NSSIF (UK) and are deployed across US Intelligence agencies, US Defense services, and the defense industrial base.

Effective data protection extends beyond encryption, it also requires secure management, recovery, sanitization, and policy oversight. Cigent simplifies these responsibilities with enterprise administration tools that streamline compliance and operational control.

The Cigent CLI utility and Enterprise Management Console provide centralized management for key handling, policy configuration, compliance reporting, and automated deployment. These tools can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud and integrate seamlessly within existing Windows and Linux environments, enabling efficient, secure administration across distributed ICS and OT systems.

Cigent Secure Storage supports the creation of hidden partitions, forming secure enclaves to protect sensitive mission data from unauthorized discovery. These partitions remain invisible and unreadable at the sector level, even after a user has logged into the device, preventing adversaries from identifying or accessing their existence.

Access to hidden partitions requires independent authentication, ensuring only authorized users can unlock and view protected data. This layer of concealment and access control provides effective defense against physical compromise, cloning, and forensic analysis.

Cigent Secure Storage protects against illicit cloning and wiping attempts by maintaining firmware-level control of all storage ranges. Hardware Full Drive Encryption (HWFDE) ensures data at rest remains locked and unreadable without proper authentication, preventing unauthorized duplication or deletion.

Cigent’s hidden partitions add another layer of protection by creating secure, concealed environments for sensitive mission data. These partitions remain invisible to the operating system and inaccessible to cloning or wiping tools, ensuring adversaries cannot detect or manipulate protected data, even with direct device access.

Cigent Secure Storage enables complete data sanitization through crypto and block erasure, executed locally, remotely, or via automated policy triggers. Encryption keys are destroyed and storage blocks are electrically cleared, rendering all data permanently inaccessible.

A patented firmware-level verification process performs block-by-block analysis to confirm every data segment has been successfully erased. This verifiable method ensures compliance with mission sanitization requirements and eliminates the need for physical drive destruction.

Cigent Secure Storage captures every data access and transaction in tamper-proof, encrypted logs. These immutable records enable the detection of malicious or unauthorized activity and provide reliable forensic evidence for post-incident analysis and compliance reporting.

Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are critical for site operations, making them prime targets for espionage and sabotage. Lack of protection makes these devices susceptible to malicious attacks from both insiders and external actors. Learn how to secure ICS data at rest (DAR) from threats, including ineffective encryption, physical device access, and operational reboots.