Barrier Networks unveils ROC cyber risk platform

Barrier Networks has launched a new software platform, the Risk Operations Centre, which consolidates cyber risk assessment and reporting for large organisations and operators of critical infrastructure.

The Glasgow-based managed security provider said the ROC gives security and risk teams a single online system for assessing cyber exposure across information technology and operational technology estates. The launch marks the company's first move into proprietary software.

Barrier Networks targets enterprises and critical national infrastructure operators. It has built the ROC on its consulting experience in cyber risk technical assessments.

Centralised risk view

The ROC presents cyber risk data through an online dashboard. Users can identify, categorise and visualise risks affecting their environment. The platform separates assessment, visualisation and planning into defined stages.

The software uses data drawn from interviews with customer stakeholders and analysis of the customer's environment. Barrier Networks aligns this data with the individual organisation's structure and priorities. The company said this produces context-rich information that reflects each organisation's own view of what is most important.

The ROC tracks vulnerabilities across an organisation's systems and maps them against recognised cyber security standards and frameworks. It then groups identified risks by criticality. The platform issues recommendations and a roadmap that outlines potential remediation steps and longer-term improvements.

Barrier Networks said organisations can configure the ROC around their own sectors, architectures and control sets. The platform supports modular assessments, which lets users focus on particular environments or business units.

Customer-controlled deployment

The ROC is hosted inside the customer's own environment. Barrier Networks said this deployment model keeps all assessment and risk data under the organisation's direct control. The company positions the ROC as suitable for organisations that place strict controls on where security data is stored.

The interface includes interactive visualisations of findings and remediation priorities. Users can generate views that support internal communication with boards, risk committees and operational teams.

Comprehensive cyber risk insights, interactive visualisations, modular assessments and private deployment are listed as core features. Barrier Networks said these elements distinguish the ROC from traditional risk assessments that are delivered as static reports.

Managing expanding estates

Barrier Networks framed the launch against a backdrop of expanding digital estates and a changing threat environment. Many organisations operate mixed IT and OT environments, often across multiple sites and cloud platforms, and face pressure on security budgets.

In this context, the company said many organisations still evaluate the state of their critical data and systems without interactive tools that support decisions on priorities and spend. It said this often results in misdirected investment in controls and gaps in protection.

The ROC aims to consolidate risk views across disparate assets. The platform assembles the assessment findings into a single view that senior leaders and technical teams can use in parallel.

Barrier Networks said the system supports organisations that must demonstrate alignment with global frameworks. It automates mapping of findings to cyber security standards and surfaces areas where controls fall short.

The company said this replaces manual cross-referencing of technical reports against compliance requirements. It said this can reduce the time between assessment, reporting and action planning.

Tailored measurements

Ian McGowan, Managing Director at Barrier Networks, said the scale and complexity of digital environments are straining conventional assessment approaches. "As organisations' digital environments continually expand, it's becoming increasingly challenging to accurately measure cyber risk. Organisations often struggle to achieve a unified view of risk across all their assets, leading to gaps that can prove detrimental to their cyber resilience. The ROC has been designed to tackle these challenges and it is the only cyber risk platform available today that provides organisations with tailor-fit cyber risk measurements and recommendations. This measurement is based entirely on the individual organisation, helping them understand their risk both technically and against what they deem most important as a business. Organisations can then benefit from the meaningful recommendations provided by the ROC to allocate budgets effectively and reduce their overall cyber risk," said McGowan.

The company contrasted the ROC with traditional assessments that result in lengthy, static documents. It said the ROC's interface and automation produce a more continuous view of risk as organisations update their environments.

Barrier Networks said users can generate remediation roadmaps with a small number of interactions within the platform. It said security teams can share those roadmaps with business stakeholders who may not have a technical background.

According to the company, organisations can use the ROC on an ongoing basis as they change their infrastructure, shift workloads or adopt new technologies. It said this supports longer-term programmes to improve cyber resilience across both IT and OT operations.

Barrier Networks plans to position the ROC at the centre of its cyber risk consulting work and managed security services as customers refresh their risk assessments and security strategies.