Summary

• Contrarian Ventures led the €7m investment, with participation from Axeleo Capital and Curiosity.
• SafeGuard AI combines information from industrial control systems, safety equipment and security monitoring tools to identify engineering deviations.
• The company plans further product development and commercial expansion across Europe and the Middle East, followed by other international markets.

Dutch industrial cybersecurity company Indurex has raised €7 million to expand software that connects security monitoring with engineering and safety information, aiming to help critical infrastructure operators understand whether suspicious activity threatens the physical systems they operate.

The investment was led by Contrarian Ventures, with participation from Axeleo Capital and Curiosity. Announced on 22 October, the financing will support research and development alongside commercial expansion in Europe and the Middle East, with the United States and Asia-Pacific identified as subsequent markets.

Indurex develops SafeGuard AI, a platform that analyses information from industrial control systems, process historians, safety equipment and conventional cyber security tools. Its software is designed to identify changes to engineering configurations, protection settings and operational processes that warrant investigation.

Industrial facilities routinely depend on several specialised systems to control production, maintain safe conditions and monitor equipment. As those systems become more closely connected to business networks, a security incident can create consequences extending beyond lost information or unavailable software.

An unauthorised change to a controller, for example, might affect the operation of a pump, production line or protection mechanism. Network monitoring could identify unusual communications involving the device, but engineers would also need to establish whether its operating parameters had changed and what consequences might follow.

Combining security signals with plant operations

SafeGuard AI draws information from distributed control systems, safety instrumented systems, process historians, alarm management platforms and IT security tools. These sources describe different aspects of an industrial environment, including equipment configuration, process conditions and the activity occurring across connected networks.

Distributed control systems manage industrial processes, while safety instrumented systems are designed to bring equipment into a safer condition when specified limits are exceeded. Historians preserve measurements and events that engineers can examine when investigating faults or changes in performance.

Indurex uses AI-based analysis to correlate this information and identify anomalies or engineering deviations. The company says its platform can recommend appropriate responses while leaving operational decisions to human personnel.

This distinction is particularly important in environments where an automated intervention could interrupt production or affect safety. Blocking a network connection may be appropriate in some circumstances, but an industrial operator must understand what the connected equipment is doing before taking action that could affect a physical process.

Engineering context can help determine whether a suspicious event deserves immediate attention or closer investigation. It does not eliminate the need for specialist judgement, because control systems can display abnormal behaviour for reasons unrelated to malicious activity.

Maintenance, equipment faults and authorised configuration changes may all produce unusual measurements. A useful monitoring platform must distinguish these circumstances from potentially harmful behaviour without overwhelming engineers with unnecessary alerts.

Indurex reports that an unnamed manufacturing customer has experienced better correlation between security and safety information and fewer irrelevant alerts. The company has not published independently audited results establishing reductions in incident response time, production interruptions or safety failures across its customer base.

Safety and cybersecurity have different obligations

The company’s platform is intended to support reporting and evidence gathering against standards including IEC 62443, IEC 61511 and IEC 61508, alongside applicable cyber security requirements.

IEC 62443 addresses security in industrial automation and control systems. IEC 61511 and IEC 61508 concern functional safety, including the design and management of systems intended to reduce risks associated with hazardous equipment or processes.

Although the disciplines are connected, demonstrating compliance with a cyber security control does not establish that a safety function meets its required performance level. A plant may have effective network access restrictions while still facing problems involving equipment maintenance, instrument reliability or inappropriate operating parameters.

Conversely, a properly designed safety system may provide protection against certain hazardous conditions without resolving weaknesses that allow attackers to access other parts of the industrial environment.

Combining records from these systems could make it easier to investigate how a problem developed and identify which controls require attention. Whether that information can support formal assurance depends on its completeness, the validation applied to it and the requirements of the relevant standard.

The European Union’s NIS2 framework creates further obligations for many organisations providing essential or important services. Asset management, incident handling and supply chain risk can all form part of the required security arrangements, although the precise legal requirements depend on the organisation and the applicable national implementation.

Automated reporting may reduce some administrative work, but it cannot replace the engineering tests, inspections and management decisions needed to establish that an industrial system is operating safely.

Integration presents a commercial obstacle

Indurex says its early customers include energy and manufacturing operators, from medium-sized businesses to multinational enterprises. Utilities and data centres are among its target markets, although the announcement does not identify a full customer list or disclose recurring revenue.

Industrial sites frequently contain equipment installed over many years, with different generations of controllers, communications protocols and software. Connecting an additional monitoring platform can require access to engineering records that are incomplete or maintained in formats unsuitable for automated analysis.

Some facilities also restrict connections to production equipment because of reliability or security concerns. Customers will consequently need assurance that the monitoring system can collect the necessary information without interfering with critical operations.

The commercial decision involves evaluating whether Indurex provides useful information beyond that already available through operational technology security products, engineering systems and maintenance applications. Organisations may already employ several specialist tools, making the cost of integration and subsequent maintenance important considerations.

Indurex founder and chief executive Jalal Bouhdada previously established Applied Risk, an industrial cybersecurity business acquired by DNV in 2021. His experience provides a background in the market, although it does not independently establish the performance of the new platform.

Its financing follows increased attention to the exposure of connected industrial systems. A SANS Institute survey cited by Indurex found that 22% of respondents had experienced an industrial control systems or operational technology cyber incident during the preceding year. That figure reflects survey responses rather than a measured incident rate for every industrial organisation.

The new investment gives Indurex resources to develop its analysis capabilities and pursue additional customers. Its commercial results will depend on whether the engineering information it brings together improves investigations and operational decisions sufficiently to justify the additional software, integration and maintenance costs.