Honeywell and Acalvio Technologies announced the launch of a new solution designed to detect known and unknown (zero-day) attacks across the operational technology (OT) environments in commercial buildings. Honeywell Threat Defense Platform (HTDP) powered by Acalvio® employs sophisticated active defense – featuring autonomous deception tactics to outsmart attackers – and provides high fidelity threat detection. Honeywell's technology features an approach recommended by governments and cybersecurity standard bodies because of its ability to detect and control attacks.

Traditionally, building OT environments rely on prevention technology and passive detection such as perimeter security and network traffic analysis to secure systems. HTDP uses deception tactics to confuse and mislead threats away from critical assets and devices, resulting in low false alerts and a high rate of detection. The solution leads threat actors to decoy assets, which appear to be valuable OT and IT devices; however, none of the devices are real and there is no access to the enterprise assets. The solution makes real, critical operational devices harder to find, slowing down adversaries and helping security teams capture them faster.

Powered by Acalvio's breakthrough deception technology, HTDP incorporates design-, intent- and industry-specific knowledge into a seamless workflow to deploy effective deception across distributed enterprise OT networks. Using specially crafted deception elements, HTDP also helps detect ransomware and even zero-day variants with precision and speed. HTDP uses advanced analytics to confirm and investigate threats.

The HTDP solution includes deployment and ongoing monitoring, freeing up internal security team resources. Advanced artificial intelligence makes the service easy to use and scalable. HTDP is well-suited for organizations that desire advanced intrusion detection in their building network without having to install or operate complex technology.

HTDP can be deployed across both IT and OT environments as either an on-premises offering or cloud service. Honeywell is committed to simplifying the cybersecurity equation for customers. This new offering also helps customers improve their resilience and business continuity efforts to help meet their environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals.

Honeywell's relationship with Acalvio includes investment by Honeywell Ventures to further support the development of the latest cybersecurity solutions and disruptive technologies.