History of Owl Cyber Defense and 4Secure
4Secure are the European master distributor of Owl Cyber Defense Technologies. 4Secure started its relationship with Owl Cyber Defense following a customer asking us to assess the marketplace and evaluate current cross-domain data diode technology. It was from this thorough review of current technologies and Owl’s unparalleled performance that 4Secure partnered with Owl Cyber Defense over seven years ago and has continued to support their European development.
4Secure recommend Owl Cyber Defense solutions to customers across Europe and rely upon Owl as a superior tool in the tool box when organisations are looking to secure cross domain transfers or protect digital assets by way of perimeter defence.
Like 4Secure, Owl are a long established Cyber Security company whose focus is IT security. With over 2000 deployed solutions worldwide, Owl is relied upon to secure critical connections for defence, government, critical infrastructure and finance institutions alike.
Owl was founded over 17 years ago and their unique cyber security offering has stood the test of time against an ever evolving threat landscape. Owl’s solution was developed from the ground up as a one-way transfer device and not a reverse engineered two-way transfer product. Initially developed by Sandia National Laboratories to support the exacting security needs of the nuclear industry, Owl owns the exclusive rights and patent that was first granted in 1997.
This patent allows Owl to be incredibly flexible with the technology, offering solutions that can transfer terabytes of data, or devices small enough to fit in a pocket whilst enabling highly secure one-way communication. Owl’s patent adopts a simple methodology of having a send card containing only electronics to send data and a receive card containing only electronics to receive data; this hardware approach ensures that the cards cannot be compromised by way of software or electronic attack and has coined the phrase DualDiode™, meaning there are two hardware enforced security devices protecting your connection.
Beyond providing a one-way transfer, the Owl technology further enhances security by maintaining complete anonymity between the two networks and also introduces a protocol break between the connection. These additional layers of security ensure that the product is reliable, easy to deploy and importantly favoured by accreditors for its simplistic, but highly robust security, enforced through hardware.
The Owl range of diodes is not a new technology, it’s an incredibly mature offering that is relied upon across market sectors. As a result, there isn’t much we haven’t seen or done for our customers, including, but not limited to:
- File Transfer
- TCP Transfer (with a true handshake)
- UDP Transfer (out of the box)
- Packet Inspection,
- AV Scanning
- XML/Json Scanning
- Full Diode Activity and Health Monitoring
All capabilities are tried and tested by companies using this technology in mission critical operations.
As well as providing various options for the transportation of data across the diode our continued involvement supporting Critical National Infrastructure (CNI), including rail, aerospace, oil and gas, water, nuclear and energy generation has led us to develop connectors that easily allow our diode technology to integrate with COTS systems within that sector including (but not limited to): OSI Pi, OPC, Yokogawa, Modbus, GE and Siemens.
Over and above the technology, 4Secure offers complete technical services, run from our approved secure facility centrally located in the UK. These services include, technical design, integration, bespoke development as well as security cleared personnel managing both on-site and telephone assistance to support technology in the most demanding of installations.
Not wishing to leave our international customers out, Owl has strived to provide a range of solutions that fall outside of any ITAR restrictions, as such all of the product range that 4Secure provide its customers throughout Europe will not require the lengthy paperwork exercise an ITAR restricted device would need. All of the European Owl range is not under ITAR and has no export limitation associated with it.
The technology is simple in its design but we would recommend speaking to one of our highly trained and technically aware staff to discuss your specific requirements, and make appropriate recommendations to support your project. Please contact us to arrange a no obligation conversation today.
