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ARIA Cybersecurity Protects Large US Steel Mills from Cyberattacks

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ARIA Cybersecurity, a CSPi (NASDAQ:CSPI) business, announced a successful deployment of its AZT PROTECT™ solution at a major US steel mill. The system demonstrated its effectiveness when it prevented potentially disruptive automatic updates during a firewall malfunction, protecting critical production infrastructure.

The solution's Industrial Control System (ICS) Lockdown feature successfully intercepted unauthorized updates during an IT network issue, maintaining operational continuity and worker safety. AZT PROTECT employs patented reactive AI-based countermeasures to prevent various cyber threats, including malware, ransomware, and nation-state-backed attacks, while ensuring critical applications remain secure from unscheduled updates.

ARIA Cybersecurity, una società di CSPi (NASDAQ:CSPI), ha annunciato l'installazione riuscita del suo AZT PROTECT™ in una grande acciaieria statunitense. Il sistema ha dimostrato la sua efficacia bloccando aggiornamenti automatici potenzialmente dannosi durante un malfunzionamento del firewall, proteggendo infrastrutture produttive critiche.

La funzionalità Lockdown per il sistema di controllo industriale (ICS) ha intercettato con successo aggiornamenti non autorizzati durante un problema alla rete IT, garantendo la continuità operativa e la sicurezza del personale. AZT PROTECT utilizza contromisure reattive brevettate basate sull'IA per fermare minacce informatiche come malware, ransomware e attacchi sostenuti da Stati, assicurando al contempo che le applicazioni critiche rimangano protette da aggiornamenti non programmati.

ARIA Cybersecurity, una unidad de CSPi (NASDAQ:CSPI), anunció la implantación exitosa de su AZT PROTECT™ en una importante acería de Estados Unidos. El sistema demostró su eficacia al impedir actualizaciones automáticas potencialmente disruptivas durante una falla del cortafuegos, protegiendo infraestructuras de producción críticas.

La función de bloqueo del sistema de control industrial (ICS) interceptó con éxito actualizaciones no autorizadas durante un problema en la red de TI, manteniendo la continuidad operativa y la seguridad de los trabajadores. AZT PROTECT emplea contramedidas reactivas patentadas basadas en IA para prevenir amenazas cibernéticas como malware, ransomware y ataques respaldados por Estados, al tiempo que protege a las aplicaciones críticas de actualizaciones no programadas.

ARIA Cybersecurity, CSPi (NASDAQ:CSPI) 산하 기업은 미국의 대형 제철소에 AZT PROTECT™ 솔루션을 성공적으로 배포했다고 발표했습니다. 방화벽 오작동 시 잠재적으로 생산을 방해할 수 있는 자동 업데이트를 차단해 핵심 생산 인프라를 보호하는 등 시스템의 효용성이 입증되었습니다.

솔루션의 산업제어시스템(ICS) 록다운 기능은 IT 네트워크 문제 발생 시 무단 업데이트를 성공적으로 가로채어 운영 연속성과 직원 안전을 유지했습니다. AZT PROTECT는 특허받은 AI 기반의 반응형 대응책을 사용하여 멀웨어, 랜섬웨어, 국가 지원 공격 등을 차단하고, 중요 애플리케이션이 예기치 않은 업데이트로부터 안전하도록 보장합니다.

ARIA Cybersecurity, une division de CSPi (NASDAQ:CSPI), a annoncé le déploiement réussi de sa solution AZT PROTECT™ dans une importante aciérie américaine. Le système a prouvé son efficacité en empêchant des mises à jour automatiques potentiellement perturbatrices lors d'un dysfonctionnement du pare-feu, protégeant ainsi des infrastructures de production critiques.

La fonction de verrouillage des systèmes de contrôle industriel (ICS) de la solution a intercepté avec succès des mises à jour non autorisées pendant un incident sur le réseau informatique, maintenant la continuité opérationnelle et la sécurité des employés. AZT PROTECT utilise des contre-mesures réactives brevetées basées sur l'IA pour contrer des menaces telles que les logiciels malveillants, les rançongiciels et les attaques soutenues par des États, tout en veillant à ce que les applications critiques restent protégées contre des mises à jour non programmées.

ARIA Cybersecurity, ein Geschäftsbereich von CSPi (NASDAQ:CSPI), gab die erfolgreiche Einführung seiner AZT PROTECT™-Lösung in einem großen US-Stahlwerk bekannt. Das System bewies seine Wirksamkeit, indem es potenziell störende automatische Updates während einer Firewall-Störung verhinderte und so kritische Produktionsinfrastruktur schützte.

Die Lockdown-Funktion für industrielle Steuerungssysteme (ICS) der Lösung hat unautorisierte Updates während eines IT-Netzwerkproblems erfolgreich abgefangen und damit Betriebsabläufe und die Sicherheit der Mitarbeiter erhalten. AZT PROTECT setzt patentierte, reaktive KI-basierte Gegenmaßnahmen ein, um Cyberbedrohungen wie Malware, Ransomware und staatlich geförderte Angriffe zu verhindern und gleichzeitig sicherzustellen, dass kritische Anwendungen vor ungeplanten Updates geschützt bleiben.

Positive
  • Successful real-world demonstration of AZT PROTECT's effectiveness in preventing system disruption
  • Product proved easy to deploy without vendor assistance, as confirmed by production operations manager
  • Solution helps prevent potential production losses and worker safety risks in critical infrastructure
Negative
  • None.

Insights

ARIA's successful protection of a major steel mill validates their cybersecurity solution and showcases significant potential in the critical infrastructure market.

ARIA Cybersecurity's AZT PROTECT has demonstrated significant real-world effectiveness by preventing what could have been a catastrophic operational disruption at a major US steel producer's mill. The system's ICS Lockdown feature successfully intercepted a flood of vendor updates that could have forced critical applications to stop and reboot abruptly, creating both production losses and potential safety hazards for workers.

What's particularly noteworthy about this deployment is the dual-protection value proposition ARIA offers: safeguarding not just against external cyberattacks but also preventing unintentional system disruptions that can be equally damaging. The incident described represents a common vulnerability in industrial environments where IT/OT convergence creates complex security challenges. When the firewalls between IT and OT networks failed and reverted to default settings, ARIA's solution provided a critical secondary defense layer.

The customer testimonial highlighting how the system prevented potentially expensive production downtime and worker safety risks validates the product's value in high-stakes industrial environments. Additionally, the plant manager's ability to deploy the system independently suggests ARIA has solved one of industrial cybersecurity's biggest challenges: creating sophisticated protection that doesn't require specialized expertise to implement.

From a competitive standpoint, ARIA's reactive AI-based countermeasures approach that specifically targets industrial control systems represents a specialized solution in the growing OT security market. The successful deployment in steel production—an industry with particularly demanding uptime and safety requirements—creates a compelling reference case for similar critical infrastructure sectors facing comparable cyber threats.

The deployment of ARIA's cybersecurity solution addresses a critical vulnerability in modern industrial operations where the convergence of IT and OT networks creates significant risk exposure. In steel production specifically, the stakes couldn't be higher—unplanned shutdowns can damage expensive equipment, create major production losses, and most critically, endanger worker safety.

What happened at this steel mill highlights a scenario that keeps operations managers awake at night: IT-related issues cascading into production environments. When the DMZ firewalls locked up and reset to default mode, a flood of vendor updates threatened to disrupt critical systems. In steel production, where processes involve molten metal and heavy machinery, abrupt system shutdowns present clear physical dangers beyond just financial losses.

The value demonstrated goes beyond just preventing a one-time incident. The "ICS Lockdown" approach allows operations teams to maintain control over update scheduling, ensuring changes only occur during planned maintenance windows rather than randomly during production runs. This level of operational control is invaluable in continuous process industries like steel manufacturing where scheduled downtime is carefully planned to minimize production impacts.

Most telling is the Plant Manager's testimony that deployment occurred without vendor assistance—a rare achievement in industrial cybersecurity implementations which typically require significant specialized expertise. This ease of deployment suggests ARIA has successfully bridged the gap between sophisticated cybersecurity capabilities and the practical realities of industrial operations environments where specialized IT resources are often limited.

ARIA AZT PROTECT™ secures critical production applications from attacks and dangerous unintentional ICS updates

BOSTON, MA / ACCESS Newswire / August 12, 2025 / ARIA Cybersecurity, a CSPi business (NASDAQ:CSPI) and a leading provider of cybersecurity solutions, announced a new customer deployment of ARIA's flagship solution, AZT PROTECT™, which works to protect steel plant operations at a mill of one of the largest US steel producers.

This large steel producer became concerned that attacks would get through IT defenses into its production OT network and take down critical production systems. The concerns are twofold in the steel industry. Not only can taking down a mill operation disrupt steel production, but it can also damage equipment and pose a real risk of harm to plant workers on the mill floors. Injuries in such facilities can be devastating and lead to loss of human life. The mill deployed AZT PROTECT to its critical production infrastructure. One of the key values of the product, known as Industrial Control System (ICS) Lockdown, was unexpectedly put to the test one evening. IT experienced an issue with the IT to OT network DMZ firewalls locking up. These types of problems are not uncommon as complex protection rules on firewalls can cause such lockups while adding an additional rule. They had to reset to default mode to get the firewalls to recover - whilst the site was protected from external attacks, a slew of vendor updates flooded into the OT network, before the proper firewall rules could be activated - a potential OT disaster as these application updates will force the critical applications to stop and reboot taking down operations abruptly and unsafely for any workers on the plant floor.

Fortunately, AZT PROTECT intercepted these updates and, as its policy was set for full ICS lockdown, it stopped the updates from executing, keeping the protected devices' applications up and fully operational. The Plant Manager was extremely pleased. "That could have been a bad day if that happened during a production run, even without production running, that number of updates could have taken several hours to process with devices facing multiple consecutive reboots. If any of these updates were untested for issues, which most were, they could have caused a long-term outage until the devices could be recovered. What could have been a very expensive lost production day was avoided."

AZT PROTECT provides a lock-down approach to protecting critical infrastructure applications from unintended updates as well as attacks, such as stopping all forms of malware, ransomware, and nation-state-backed attacks on these applications and the operating systems on which they run.

"We are extremely pleased that our product performed flawlessly for this customer in their time of need. We feel it's a testament to our team's ability to design effective products, but what was truly inspiring is this customer's production operation manager deployed the product across all his devices without our help," said Gary Southwell, President of ARIA Cybersecurity. "This shows that our product is not only effective but easy to deploy - not something you hear much of from production operations managers when they are talking about cybersecurity products!"

The AZT PROTECT solution utilizes patented reactive AI-based countermeasures to stop the attacks as they land on an operation's most vulnerable critical production control systems. These countermeasures lock down critical applications from unscheduled updates and adulteration while stopping code-based attacks, such as malware and ransomware, from executing. Further, they disrupt the techniques nation-state-backed attackers utilize to land, expand, and then escalate privileges to take control of such systems.

About ARIA Cybersecurity Solutions

ARIA Cybersecurity, a business of CSPi Inc. (NASDAQ:CSPI), recognizes that better, stronger, more effective cybersecurity starts with a smarter approach. Our solutions provide new ways for organizations to protect their most critical assets-they can shield their critical applications from attack with our AZT PROTECT solution, while monitoring internal traffic, device-level logs, and alert output with our ARIA ADR solution to substantially improve threat detection and surgically disrupt cyberattacks and data exfiltration. Customers in a range of industries rely on our solutions to accelerate incident response, automate breach detection, and protect their most critical assets and applications-no matter where they are stored, used, or accessed. Learn more at ARIACybersecurity.com.

ARIA Cybersecurity Media Contact
Gary Southwell
info@ariacybersecurity.com

SOURCE: CSP, Inc.



View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

FAQ

What is ARIA Cybersecurity's AZT PROTECT solution and how does it protect steel mills?

AZT PROTECT is a cybersecurity solution that uses AI-based countermeasures to protect critical infrastructure by preventing unauthorized updates, malware, ransomware, and nation-state-backed attacks in industrial control systems.

How did AZT PROTECT prevent disruption at the US steel mill?

When the mill's IT-OT network DMZ firewalls experienced issues, AZT PROTECT's ICS Lockdown feature intercepted and blocked unauthorized vendor updates that could have caused system shutdowns and production disruptions.

What specific cyber threats does ARIA's AZT PROTECT defend against in industrial settings?

AZT PROTECT defends against malware, ransomware, nation-state-backed attacks, and prevents unscheduled updates and system adulterations in critical production control systems.

Why is cybersecurity particularly important for steel mill operations?

Cybersecurity is crucial for steel mills because attacks can not only disrupt production but also damage expensive equipment and pose serious safety risks to plant workers, potentially leading to devastating injuries or loss of life.

What makes ARIA Cybersecurity's AZT PROTECT different from other industrial cybersecurity solutions?

AZT PROTECT stands out for its easy deployment without vendor assistance, patented reactive AI-based countermeasures, and ability to maintain operational continuity while protecting against both cyber attacks and unintended system updates.
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