Now, more than ever before, the importance of flaw-proof cybersecurity measures across many of the nation’s largest industries cannot be stressed enough – this is even more so for physical infrastructure. That said, we are pleased to announce our inaugural portfolio investment into APERIO Systems, a young Israeli startup dedicated to providing the last line of defense for securing critical utility infrastructure. Last week, APERIO Systems announced a $4.5 million seed funding round with contributions from Energias de Portugal (EDP), Data Point Capital, Jump Capital and ourselves (Scopus Ventures).
The APERIO Systems remarkable technology provides large-scale utilities, under constant threat of elusive cyber criminals, with unmatched protection against sophisticated internal and external attacks. The proprietary Intrusion Prevention System based on Data Forgery Protection™ (DFP) technology has the ability to detect artificial manipulations of industrial process data from the rate of gas flow at a petroleum refinery, to the temperature and spin rates of turbines in a power plant, or the chlorine level of water supply networks.
Cyber attackers able to easily expose vulnerabilities in outdated, shallow technology have become increasingly more attracted to the physical infrastructure that houses critical management elements of power plants and other industrial plants. APERIO System’s mission however, is to identify hackers attempting to manipulate the infrastructure of a plant, even those able to disguise their efforts as routine functions, before they have a chance to mature and prevent further damage.
Scopus Ventures is thrilled to have a hand in helping to scale this innovative technology that fills a current gap lacking near fail-proof threat detection capabilities and real-time, granular auditing for global utility operations. “There is a global need to protect every critical control system from internal and external cyber threats and malicious actors,” according to our Managing Partner Bahram Nour-Omid. “APERIO Systems’ founders are exceptional technologists and visionaries, whose AI based approach, requiring no new hardware, provides exceptional protection for critical infrastructure against potentially catastrophic attacks.”
For those still wondering what makes APERIO Systems’ technology is so crucial for the future of physical cyber security protection:
- Seamless integration – developed by industrial and cybersecurity experts, APERIO Systems passively plugs into existing monitoring systems
- Machine learning – APERIO Systems uses state-of-art machine learning techniques to reconstruct the true state of the system in real time, enabling unprecedented resilience against both internal and external malicious activity
- Propriety algorithms – using advanced propriety algorithms APERIO Systems looks for the data’s unique fingerprints and validates its integrity and authenticity. Based on these fingerprints, APERIO Systems alerts and pinpoints the attached equipment and faked process data
We look forward in supporting APERIO Systems and its leadership team in the development of this technology and accelerating global growth across Europe and beyond. If you’re interested in learning more or keeping a pulse on the introduction of APERIO System’s next-generation Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS for SCADA), please visit www.aperio-systems.com and www.scopusventures.com for updates.