Today’s critical infrastructure and control systems are rooted in the physical world where sensors and controllers constantly interact to manage physical processes. Unfortunately, traditional cyber deception uses façades that are easily seen through by intelligent attackers and cannot effectively prevent them from causing chaos. This is where Shadow Figment enters the scene: The solution sidetracks hackers with realistic responses representative of the physical process being defended, thereby buying time for the good guys.

How It Works

Shadow Figment defends critical infrastructure and operational systems against devastating cyberattacks using interactive decoys mapped to simulations of real systems. With the attacker safely preoccupied, Shadow Figment alerts defenders and gathers information to respond appropriately—without affecting system performance.

Shadow Figment’s deception approaches are specifically designed for control systems and critical infrastructure. These model-driven decoys are generated by machine learning and appear to operate in coordination with a physical system. Specialized algorithms allow the decoys to interact with an intelligent attacker as if an attack is affecting real-world hardware with associated impacts on physical processes. As attackers interact with decoys, Shadow Figment’s models of the physical process calculate the system effects of those changes and further confounds the attacker with more realistic-looking responses.

Ultimately, decoys draw the attacker toward what appears to be easier and higher value targets. Licensees can use Shadow Figment deception to lure intelligent attackers inside a system with realistic decoys, thereby diverting their attention long enough to limit the potential damage. Compared to traditional cybersecurity sensors, decoys provide low false-positive detection to give defenders valuable time to respond to threats actively attempting to breach their most critical systems—all while maintaining normal, uninterrupted system operations.