About Us

Kumo is a subscription service offered by Tivarri that is designed to protect critical national infrastructure.

At Tivarri we have a very different approach to network security. We completely segregate network traffic from remote assets and ensure that they can only be accessed from our UK data centres, adding multiple new lines of defence to Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

By its nature, critical national infrastructure is distributed, often in locations where there is no fixed-line network connection. Securing these assets from cyber criminals is difficult, whether these be power sub-stations or pumping stations. There are many network security solutions, but these generally involve installing expensive firewall devices at each location. These must be manually configured, are not easy to patch or maintain, and present obstacles to determining the legitimacy of network traffic.

They also typically use Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to encrypt network traffic from a central point to each asset. This is good at stopping network traffic being snooped, but it assumes that all devices can be trusted. Once one device is compromised, it is possible for cyber criminals to hop from one asset to another with no straightforward way of being able to identify illegitimate traffic.

Kumo overcomes these issues by deploying security devices at each location that are configured and managed from a central platform. This allows the devices to be deployed with a verified highly secure configuration. They are also configured to communicate only with Tivarri’s data centres and ignore attempts at communication from all other locations.

The private network is accessed via a highly secure portal. This ensures control is locked down to individual user level and includes Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) or secure tokens for additional layers of security. A single point of access enables much higher levels of monitoring to identify and negate attempts at unauthorised access.

The Kumo service works by installing a small robust device at each location capable of using both fixed line and cellular connectivity. These are automatically deployed when connected to the network and are configured to allow network traffic only to Tivarri’s data centres. This approach means the data centres have multiple lines of defence to ensure that all traffic and access is secured and monitored through a single point.

Tivarri operates a 24/7 NOC (Network Operations Centre) to continuously monitor network traffic to and from assets.

Kumo operates on a subscription basis which includes updates and NOC operations.