Fortress and Industrial Defender announce integrated OT security offering
The companies said the joint OT security offering is built to identify affected assets faster as vulnerability disclosures accelerate.
Fortress Information Security and Industrial Defender said on Aug. 11 that they are joining forces on an integrated security offering for operational technology, or OT, environments. The companies said the goal is to help industrial operators identify affected assets faster as new vulnerabilities emerge.
Fortress and Industrial Defender said the combined approach is meant to connect asset visibility with vulnerability intelligence so operators can find exposed systems more quickly and prioritize the most important fixes.
What the companies said the integration does
According to the release, the integrated solution combines Industrial Defender's view of deployed OT assets — including firmware and software versions, configurations, patch levels and operational risk context — with Fortress's AI-driven vulnerability correlation, software bill of materials, or SBOM, analysis and remediation workflow.
The companies said that when a new vulnerability is disclosed, the system is designed to identify every affected asset in an OT environment. The release said that can extend to embedded software libraries compiled into specific firmware versions. It also said response should be prioritized using asset criticality, location and connectivity rather than generic severity scores.
Why it matters
The release says annual CVE disclosure volume is on pace to exceed 66,000 disclosures in 2026, which it described as about a 44% increase over 2025. It cited FIRST.org's Mid-Year 2026 Vulnerability Forecast and NVD data for that figure.
Fortress said it works with industry through the Asset to Vendor Library and the North American Energy Software Assurance Database, or NAESAD. The company said it serves eight of the top ten public utilities and three of the six U.S. military branches. Industrial Defender said it provides OT and industrial control systems cybersecurity and compliance tools for operators in electric utilities, oil and gas, chemical, water and manufacturing.
Background
Fortress described itself in the release as an AI-powered risk management company focused on critical infrastructure and government agencies. Industrial Defender said it is marking its 20th year.
The companies said the combined offering is intended to address a gap between knowing what is deployed in an industrial environment and knowing which disclosed vulnerabilities affect those assets. Fortress CEO Alex Santos said vulnerability discovery now happens at machine speed and response has to keep pace. He said many OT programs were built for a world of only hundreds of relevant disclosures a year.
Industrial Defender CEO George Kalavantis said the company has spent 20 years building an accurate picture of what is actually running inside industrial environments. He said that asset information becomes more valuable when it is correlated against vulnerability intelligence at the pace AI-driven discovery now demands.
What happens next
The release did not include pricing, deployment timing or customer commitments. It said only that the companies announced the integrated solution on Aug. 11.
Sources
Editorial note: This article was prepared with AI assistance and includes source attribution for reader review.
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