Industrial giant Schneider Electric and cyber security expert WALLIX Group have joined forces to create a new “Made in France” partnership bringing together the expertise of their respective Network Engineering & Cybersecurity (NEC) and Bastion Privileged Access Protection software teams.

CYBER SECURITY IN INDUSTRY

Connecting industrial systems to IP networks and information systems creates new cyber risks with potentially critical consequences. Connections between planning and production applications and resources and links for remote access to industrial information systems pose an inevitable threat. The challenges of regulatory compliance (LPM, NIS, Operators of Vital Importance) and secure and robust systems must also be addressed in order to ensure optimal protection of industrial environments.

In order to meet all of these challenges, Schneider Electric has chosen to include the WALLIX ADMINBASTION (WAB) Suite in its catalog of services. Schneider Electric clients can now protect access to industrial information systems and trace privileged user activity by recoding sessions and managing passwords.

“By combining our experience and expertise, WALLIX in privileged access management and Schneider Electric in industrial systems, we have created i-PAM (Industrial Privileged Access Management), a solution for managing maintainers' and remote maintainers' access to industrial architectures,” said Yann Bourjault, Head of Cybersecurity and Process Automation at Schneider Electric, highlighting the key role of privileged access management in its catalog of services. “We are proud to be the benchmark integrator of this trustworthy solution in industrial environments.”

“We are very pleased to have formed this partnership with Schneider Electric,” said Xavier Lefaucheux, VP Sales Western Europe at WALLIX. “By bringing together our expertise and adding our solution to the Schneider Electric catalog, we will be able to share best IT security practices across industry. Privileged access management is essential to trace and monitor the actions of remote maintainers and external service providers and quite simply, to guarantee the interoperability of information systems without compromising security. The Schneider Electric NEC team is now certified to integrate our Bastion solution and we have already identified several promising joint projects.”

Many leading French and European companies have chosen Bastion from WALLIX to protect their information systems and networks of PLCs and robots, as well as to secure remote access for remote maintenance and the Internet of Things (IoT), the driving force of the industry of the future – Industry 4.0.

ABOUT THE SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC NEC TEAM

Schneider Electric is the global specialist in energy management and automation. Its offering includes technologies, software and services to help customers optimize the management and automation of their operations.

The NEC team is responsible for designing and implementing secure industrial architectures. Bringing together a range of complementary profiles and expertise, the team works on Ethernet networks as well as cyber security for SCADAs.

Through its work, Schneider Electric has identified a need to offer a privileged access management solution to secure administrator access in its customers' industrial environments.

In early 2017, Schneider Electric France became the first manufacturer to comply with the PIMSEC guidelines issued by the French National Cybersecurity Agency that set out a series of requirements for providers of cyber security integration and maintenance solutions.

ABOUT WALLIX

A software company providing cyber security solutions, WALLIX Group is the European specialist in privileged account governance.

In response to recent regulatory change (NIS/GDPR in Europe and OVIs in France) and the cyber security threats affecting all companies today, the WALLIX ADMINBASTION Suite (or WAB Suite) helps users protect their critical IT assets: data, servers, terminals and connected objects. The suite is the first market solution to have been awarded first-level security certification (CSPN) by France's National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) and thus meet all of the criteria for regulatory compliance.

WALLIX accompanies more than 400 companies and organizations on a day-to-day basis, securing the access to more than 100,000 hardware and software resources. Its solutions are marketed through a network of more than 90 resellers and trained and accredited integrators. Listed on Euronext under the code ALLIX, WALLIX Group is a leader on the Privileged Access Management (PAM) market with a strong presence throughout Europe and EMEA. Alain Afflelou, Dassault Aviation, Gulf Air, Maroc Telecom, McDonald's, Michelin, and PSA Peugeot-Citroën trust WALLIX to secure their information systems.