A new, tablet-sized media scanner boasts a wide range of capabilities for critical infrastructure defense. Credit: OPSWAT Infrastructure protection vendor OPSWAT has announced the availability of its new MetaDefender Kiosk K2100 hardware, designed to provide a mobile option for users who want the company’s media-scanning capabilities to work in the field.OPSWAT’s MetaDefender line of kiosks is designed to address a potential security weakness for critical infrastructure defended by air gaps. In order to patch those systems, audit them, or move data among them, removable media like SD cards, USB sticks and sometimes even DVDs are used by field service personnel.The vulnerability of the removable media is, therefore, a potential problem, according to OPSWAT vice president of products Pete Lund, not least in the sense that that media could be used to move sensitive information off of critical infrastructure. “Oftentimes in OT [operational technology], you’ll have third-party contractors, and oftentimes they need to take data off of the machines,” he said. “What we can do is scan information coming in and coming out for PII, hostnames, anything that’s sensitive data … and sanitize files for that.” The MetaDefender Kiosk line also scans files on removable media using up to 30 different antivirus protection applications, as well as checking through binaries and executables for vendor and version info, to determine whether they could introduce vulnerabilities into protected systems.Moreover, MetaDefender uses content disarm and reconstruction technology to protect against zero-day attacks, Lund noted. “So oftentimes, zero-days will include things that matches specific pattern, like you have a PDF or a Word document with something embedded into it,” he said. “And we … think about the use case of a contractor who goes to maybe a vendor website, downloads a PDF, but what if this is actually a watering hole website where that PDF has been weaponized?”Hence, the CDR (content disarm and reconstruction) technology in the MetaDefender system is designed to rebuild a PDF or Word document to remove any code or macros that don’t need to be there.Lund said that the target customers are mostly in the manufacturing, chemical processing, energy and oil industries — but that the system is applicable to any organization that has a geographically dispersed or outdoor component to their operations.“The other side is folks doing digital evidence collection, so folks in either the armed forces or military who are picking up potential criminally used laptops, thumb drives, phones,” he said. “We have the ability to scan, ultimately, anything.”The K2100 can be ordered from OPSWAT as of now, with shipments expected to start going out later in the first quarter. The product is available in either a perpetual model — where the hardware can be bought outright, with licensing fees for the AV engines and different capabilities — or as a subscription leasing model with an annual use fee. Related content news NIST publishes new guides on AI risk for developers and CISOs Companion publications to NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework explore a long worry list in more detail and are likely to become essential reading for security professionals. By John Dunn May 01, 2024 4 mins Regulation Government Security Practices news analysis 5 key takeways from Verizon's 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report The rapid of exploitation of zero-day vulnerabilities, such as MOVEit, and the effectiveness of ransomware attacks are two of the major findings from last year’s breach data. By Rosalyn Page May 01, 2024 5 mins Data Breach Zero-day vulnerability Data and Information Security feature The CSO guide to top security conferences Tracking postponements, cancellations, and conferences gone virtual — CSO Online’s calendar of upcoming security conferences makes it easy to find the events that matter the most to you. By CSO Staff May 01, 2024 15 mins Technology Industry IT Skills Events feature 3 Windows vulnerabilities that may not be worth patching Some vulnerabilities eat up a security team’s time and resources yet provide little or nothing in the way of true protection. Some may even introduce more risk to a network. By Susan Bradley May 01, 2024 7 mins Windows Security Patch Management Software Security Practices PODCASTS VIDEOS RESOURCES EVENTS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe